Sōshin Rensa
by Trace Reading
Summary: Senju, Uchiha, Uzumaki.  The ability to control demons split between three clans, lost to time but for a scant few.  Legends made and destroyed by history.  An untitled story, retold.
1. A Step Forward

_Author's Note: This is, as you may or may not have guessed, the rewrite of The Untitled Naruto Story. I've done all I can with it, and while you might think it's too soon to even think about starting over, it did what it was meant to do, namely help me flesh out my ideas and determine whether people would actually read my work. Now that I have reached a satisfactory conclusion, I feel confident enough to put the original work aside, incomplete though it might be, and begin anew._

_Without further ado, I give you the story and hope you all enjoy it as much as its predecessor._

October tenth. Ten years old. Another year, another day that nobody wanted to acknowledge. Naruto watched his reflection in the glass as the rain pattered down. It seemed that even the sky hated him. Sighing quietly, the boy kicked off his shoes and flopped onto the bed in his small apartment, flicking on the television to see if it would bother picking anything up in this weather. October was supposed to be a sunny month, one of the brightest months of the whole year even if the days were shorter.

Today it was as if everyone, even the gods, wanted him to suffer. At least nobody had thrown sticks this time, on the way home from the Academy. Dreary though the weather might be, it was keeping everyone else's spirits down, as well, and nobody had harassed him much today, seeming to think it too much effort for once. Oh yes, the names still came, and he still got chased, but only when he had tried to seek shelter from the downpour. At least his books and scrolls weren't wet, though the same couldn't be said for his clothes.

A blue and orange jacket he'd gotten out of the garbage of all things was hung up in the shower to dry after he'd washed it, getting as much of the soil out of it as possible; it and a pair of orange pants had been unceremoniously dumped into a trash can despite being in pristine condition, and then buried over with some more refuse, mostly spoiled food. Ignorant of the rain, of their dampness, he'd fished the articles out and brought them home, washing himself first, then the clothes he'd gotten soaked and dirty in, along with his new prizes. Long black pants and a grey shirt were his garments for now, waiting for the water to boil so he could put on some noodles and have something besides old field rations for dinner. Ramen and fruit wasn't the best combination but it beat starving.

While he watched the program on channel six through a haze of snow, Naruto grumbled inwardly. Everyone was stupid, and they pissed him off. He never did anything to them! Why did they always have to act like he'd killed their pet or something? Remembering the looks he got from people on the street, and from teachers of all people, just managed to infuriate him. Then there was a loud rumble of thunder before the lights flickered and went out.

"Oh, that's just _fucking great!_" he yelled to nobody in particular, banging around in his darkened room to find a flashlight. His anger was peaking at all the injustice.

"_Boy."_ Looking around in confusion, eyes slowly adapting to the darkness, Naruto scratched his head. As far as he knew, he was alone in the apartment, hell, alone in the whole building. The other tenants would be out at a time like this, getting drunk or spending time with friends. He supposed he could try to head out to the Inuzuka house, or the Nara estate, and yet at the same time knew it was a bad idea.

"_Boy. I know you can hear me."_

"Who's there?"

"_Inside…look inside…"_

"Inside where?"

"_Inside your head, stupid. Close your eyes and count to ten…"_ Seeing no reason why he shouldn't (other than the fact that he was listening to a voice that wasn't there), Naruto closed his eyes, noting very little change given how nothing that required electricity was currently functioning, and began to count. When he reached ten, he opened his eyes and noted that things were considerably off.

He stood inside a large concrete bunker of sorts, decorated with pipes and valves and all sorts of other machinery related to the flow and control of water. The floor was slightly wet, a warm spray hissing out of a damaged pipe allowing the ground to become saturated. Several other pipes were leaking as well, some more vigorously than others; one in particular was outright broken, water spilling from it at a steady rate to generate a constant dripping noise. At the far end of the room was a large steel door set into an even larger grate that stretched from floor to ceiling, many of the pipes originating from a darkened room beyond the door.

Approaching it Naruto saw that, instead of a doorknob, there was a paper tag bearing the word "seal" on it, and for a moment that puzzled him, until a pair of glowing yellow-gold eyes appeared in the gloom beyond the grating.

"**So you're here at last. At first I thought you would appear in the control room…but that would assume you had any control to begin with."** The voice was loud in Naruto's head, placing a pressure on him that he'd never experienced before in his life. It wasn't a bad voice, to his ears, as it wasn't calling him names (yet), but even so he knew there was something off about it. Every word was laced with malice, unfettered hatred of a sort even he was unaccustomed to. Somehow he could tell that the hate was not directed at him specifically, but at the world in general; small comfort though as he started to feel like he should know who this voice belonged to.

"Yeah, and what's that supposed to mean, big-eyes?"

"**Such a bold little human, aren't you, Naruto?"** the voice chuckled. **"It means exactly what it sounds like. Your chakra control sucks."**

"Feh, I don't need to come inside my own head to get chewed on. If I wanted that I'd just hang a steak around my neck and pull Kuromaru's tail."

"**Snide comments aside, I need you to do something for me, boy. Those leaky pipes are getting everything wet—so fix them."**

"And how in the heck am I supposed to do that? I'm not a plumber!"

"**This is your body, idiot. And that **_**broken**_** pipe goes directly to your head, though I don't know why it bothers. Even if you repaired it, you'd probably still be an idiot. I can help you, though. You already have the tools you need; all you require now is the will to use them."**

"What's the catch?" Naruto narrowed his eyes at the floating eyeballs suspiciously, taking a step back from the door as a row of gleaming fangs appeared Cheshire-like in the darkness.

"**No catch. This helps you and me alike. If you don't fix the leak now, others will soon follow, and that will be detrimental to us both. And since I am locked in here I can't do the work myself. Know this, little man. What happens to you affects me as well, and I happen to like not wallowing in stagnant water."**

"Fine, you win. What do I have to do, furball?" There was a slight rumble of surprise from beyond the gate, the teeth disappearing and the eyes almost vanishing as well as it was their turn to constrict at the speaker warily.

"**You know what I am, boy?"**

"I have a few guesses. I don't like any of them, but even if none of them are true and you're just some weird split personality of mine, the possibilities help explain why everyone hates me. Whatever my ideas are, that's not important right now. Let's just get to work fixing me so I don't end up exploding or something."

* * *

><p>The Kyuubi no Kitsune watched as his jailor bustled to and fro, fixing what he could and patching what he couldn't. It was more than he expected from the boy, actually, and he had to admit some perverse admiration for his unwavering spirit. True, the damage to the kid's chakra network was his prisoner's fault, though indirectly; Naruto's anger had been growing as of late, allowing more of the prodigious energy that the fox possessed to enter the system, and at this stage the network couldn't handle the strain, allowing damage to occur. It wasn't as if it were intentional, of course. The seal maker had meant for a greater amount of the Kyuubi's chakra to be absorbed by his host in times of great need, just not this <em>early<em>. If it weren't for those stupid, ignorant villagers he might not be experiencing the required sentiments at all.

He supposed he could also blame it on the boy's confrontational nature. Naruto didn't go actively picking fights, but his heightened emotional states when challenged caused those failsafe measures to activate, which in the fox's opinion was dumb as hell. Of course there hadn't been time to make the seal smarter and short of giving Naruto direct control of the system (which simply wouldn't have been possible while the boy was still a newborn) the only option available had been to allow the valves to open on their own to alleviate the back-pressure.

Of course, that meant that some of them were going to break under the strain; the worst incident had been three years ago, and an outside source at that. Someone either very skilled or very lucky had caught Naruto unawares and thrashed him pretty soundly; although ninjutsu were forbidden to use on civilians, the man had, and in the process interrupted parts of the network, including the flow to Naruto's brain. The blood loss was bad enough but for the spiritual energy to not be reaching its destination was hazardous in more ways than one.

Kyuubi actually did fear for Naruto, though not in the way a parent or friend might; it was more of a self-preservation sort of terror. At the very least it would aid Naruto's memory retention to have that particular pipe fixed, though the harm to his cognitive and learning ability might already have been done, and was likely permanent if it had. While Naruto was busy working, Kyuubi directed him as best he was able, having a complete set of plans to the child's chakra pathways, of course. He also kept an eye on the outside world, looking, listening for danger. Soon—he didn't know how long it had been—there came a knocking at Naruto's door. It was probably that one-armed kunoichi that was always escorting him to school.

"**That's enough for now, Naruto. We'll work on the rest later."**

"How do I get out? I don't see an exit door—oh, there it is. Well, thanks for all your help, I guess. Even if you are doing it to save your own hide it helps me too, right?"

"**Indeed. And Naruto, there is one more thing. Do not tell anyone you know of my existence. I know you have your suspicions of who and what I am. That said, you must keep this a secret for now. Trust me."**

"Yes sir. I'll be back later!" And then there was silence. At least that annoying dripping had stopped.

* * *

><p>Iruka watched the students shuffling out of his classroom in twos and threes, at the end of another long day of studies. They were hard workers, most of them, each and every one showing more potential than he'd seen in six years of teaching. He'd landed a position as an Academy instructor at the Hokage's request, and put forth his best effort every day to teach his students the guiding principles of Konoha, as well as the basic skills they would all need, their foundations as shinobi.<p>

The newest crop of students was set to be some of the best and brightest in years, with rare exception, and although more than a few of them came from civilian families each of them showed the drive and determination to excel in their studies. Well, most of the time. Grinning wryly, Iruka rotated his throwing arm through some stretches, shoulder sore from all the times he had to throw erasers at Nara and Uzumaki to make them pay attention. The pair of them liked to goof off, and Naruto in particular had the uncanny ability to convince people (usually) to go along with his ideas. If that sort of charisma persisted into his teenage years, the boy could wind up a real terror, and not just because of the secret he held.

Originally, Iruka had no love lost for the jinchuuriki, the demon container a living reminder of the pain and fear that had existed in the days preceding his birth and persisted with the knowledge that the terrible monster was not dead, but alive and well, if sealed away. None of the children knew, of course, least of all Naruto himself, and truthfully Iruka saw a lot of himself in the kid. Shrugging at nothing in particular, Iruka abandoned his thoughts and turned his eyes down to the stack of essays that had been turned in by the second-years.

The majority of his students didn't display any particular quirks or desires in their reports, but a few of them did stand out, the ones that Iruka thought had the highest possibility making genin on the first try—if they graduated, that is. Haruno's writing, as usual, was trim and proper, as was Yamanaka's (despite the doodles in the margins of her kissing Uchiha while a certain pink-haired girl watched in envy), reflecting their precise control and intense rivalry with each other.

Inuzuka and Uzumaki both had energetic scrawls reflecting their impatient natures, contrasted to Hyuuga and Nara, both who seemed as if they were expending the bare minimum of effort required and nothing else. Akimichi and Aburame treated the assignment with the appropriate measure of respect, even if Chouji was making excessive food references and Shino apparently decided to forgo writing and let his kikai bugs etch the paper instead; the last one, Uchiha, had a rather aggressive tilt to his lettering that belied the bored and detached attitude he normally displayed.

The essays themselves were more telling, and again it was those nine that he reviewed last that caught his attention the most. He'd be interested in seeing how they measured up in a couple of years, how they performed at the end of all their studies. Each one was different, and yet so alike that the words themselves didn't tell him anything significant. The subtle differences, that's where he'd find the real information he needed about each of them.

Naruto in particular had a goal evident in mind, even if he claimed not to know what it was. He knew people didn't like him, if not why, and as hard as the youth fought to get people to acknowledge him, Iruka wouldn't be surprised if he ended up settling for something outrageous to get that attention he so desired. The strangest thing was that, in recent weeks, Naruto's grades actually seemed to be improving, somewhat. His scores weren't going to approach Haruno's or Uchiha's by a long shot but they were good enough that he wasn't dead-last anymore, either.

Reading over the papers again in the fading afternoon light, Iruka began to think about how he could shape these students to reach their goals, without turning them into something that they weren't. He still had two years or so with them; that was plenty of time to start them on the right path, or so he believed. Iruka was a hands-on teacher, by way of his life experiences. When he could, where he could, he'd give them the guidance they needed, whether they were aware of it or not, whether they wanted it or not.

And he was going to do his best to make sure Naruto passed, no matter what.

* * *

><p>Kakashi's attention was divided, as was his chakra. If Sasuke ever noticed that he was being watched by a clone, he didn't let on, and if it bothered him that it was a clone and not a real person, he didn't let that show, either. An ordinary person might think he was a stalker, sitting outside the windows of Academy students like this; he always kept a respectable distance, close enough that it could be said he <em>was<em> watching, far enough that the average citizen would hopefully assume (correctly) that he was simply standing guard.

It wasn't costing him any sleep, not really. Kakashi didn't have anybody to train and wasn't accepting all that many missions, having plenty of money to keep his rent paid and his cupboard full for awhile, and besides that, he had a problem. He simply couldn't sleep until he was sure that the two boys he took it upon himself to look after, even in secret, were safe for another night. So what if he slept in as a result? He wasn't taking missions and he wasn't letting those ANBU think they could slack off.

Sasuke was still on suicide watch, for some idiotic reason; the child was not going to kill himself, at least not like that. Though he might decide to take on his brother before he was truly capable of it, and that in itself could be construed as suicide, the way that some people decided they wanted to die but didn't have the courage to do it by their own hand. And if he did run off half-cocked it would be his job to bring him back.

Naruto, on the other hand, wasn't in any danger from himself, unless one counted his habit of eating nothing but ramen for most of his meals. Once a week, while he was at school, Kakashi snuck in and replaced all the spoiled or slightly out of date food in the effervescent child's refrigerator with fresher stock. If Naruto realized that something was going on, he wasn't telling anyone about it.

A presence beside him didn't distract the Sharingan from peering through the window at the Kyuubi container. He didn't need to look, anyway.

"Mitarashi."

"Hatake. A little late to be out peeping, isn't it?" Her foot nudged the pouch holding his _Icha Icha _novel.

"I don't really feel right leaving these two alone." Kakashi didn't see it, but he knew that Anko had nodded in response, and after a moment she sat down on the roof next to him, hunched over in roughly the same position.

"One that nobody wants, and one that wants nobody. Think we should shove them together?"

"Not a good idea. I wish that there was more I could do for them; right now I can only hope things turn around for them soon. They talk, from time to time. Spend time training after school together, every so often. I wouldn't exactly call them friends, though."

"Not like us, eh, scarecrow?" Kakashi didn't move as the special jounin rested the weight of her upper body against his torso, and was grateful that she left off her usual teasing. Nor did he stiffen when her breath tickled against his neck, a wistful sigh escaping Anko's lips. "Maybe we should step in, you know? Keep these kids from getting more fucked up than they are already. We can be one big happy dysfunctional family. Poor brat doesn't even have a clue."

Kakashi nodded, and after a short internal debate draped his arm on Anko's shoulders, pulling her a little closer as they both watched Naruto sleeping. Contentment always settled over her when she did this, looking at the cadmium blond at rest, the only time his mask was ever off, and in her mind could see herself doing the same thing with her own children, someday. She knew that elsewhere her own copy was doing the same with the clone Kakashi had left overseeing Sasuke.

"Sometimes I wonder if I should have volunteered to take him in. It worked with you."

"I don't know, Kakashi. I doubt the council would have let either of us get that close to him. You were Minato-sama's star pupil and me, well, I'm the experiment that didn't fail. No, they'd worry that one of us would end up damaging him somehow. He's doing well enough as it is. Sasuke, too, I guess. Is three years enough time to forget losing everything you ever cared about?"

"Thirty years isn't enough time, Anko. Too late for second-guessing ourselves, though."

"Yeah…I'd better get back before my guards notice I'm missing. Keep our kid out of trouble, huh? I'd hate to see that spirit of his get dampened any further than it has already."

"He'll be alright. He's got Iruka, after all. They both do." Hatake tradition demanded that members of the family who were also active shinobi never remove their masks around others, even those you were intimate with. Kakashi broke tradition, pulling his mask down and pulling Anko in for a quick yet intense kiss. If word got out that the two of them were seeing each other…actually, Kakashi didn't care about that at all.

"They should have more than that. _He_ should have more than that. But there's nothing we can do about it, is there?" Catching the hurt in Anko's eyes, Kakashi shook his head, frowning as his mask went back into place and the hitai-ite went over Obito's Sharingan once more.

"I wish there was, Anko." Dispelling their clones, the two parted ways, each looking forward to the next chance for a midnight rendezvous. The waiting was torture, wanting, needing to show to everyone that he liked this woman, cared about her. He knew how much it hurt her that he couldn't, and it angered him to no end, as much as it did when he saw people cheating Naruto out of what little he had. _Someday soon_, he promised himself. If he could work up the courage to tell Anko he loved her, then he should certainly be able to work up the courage to show it in front of people, Hatake tradition be damned. He understood though that old habits were hard to break. It was a problem he was constantly contending with.

His mind drifted back, as it often did, to the letter he had received on Naruto's third birthday. Why it took so long getting to him Kakashi would never know, as if someone or something didn't want him to interfere with the way things were. It was a letter from his sensei, Minato, composed mere days before his death.

_Kakashi:_

_If you're reading this then it means something has befallen Kushina or I, maybe both of us, and if that is the case then I want you to listen closely. Look after our son. Look after Naruto. I don't care what you have to do, how many skulls you have to bash in; just make sure he isn't alone. Make me proud to have been your teacher; as I have instructed you, teach him as well. And don't let him get roped into any marriage contracts; Kushina would kill me if he did._

—_Minato_

So far he'd managed to fail drastically, the letter come far too late for him to do anything about the anger and revulsion people turned on his sensei's only child. The lone visible eye on the man's face turned to the heavens, wondering if Minato was mourning the state of affairs in whatever afterlife he now existed in, or if he was angry at the people that treated his son so cruelly. At the same time he took some comfort in the fact that he hadn't been a total letdown to his teacher and that despite the world's best efforts Naruto _was_ cared for, even if it was only by a few people rather than the dozens of friends and companions that he could have had.

He had his suspicions of course, inklings that elements within Konoha's shinobi and civilian society were intentionally blocking his efforts regarding Naruto. More than once he, among a few others that he knew of, had applied to take him in as family and somehow, some way, the documents kept getting lost or misfiled, suggesting that there was active rebellion against the boy's presence, against the Third's law. Well, whatever other people did, he was going to do his best to make sure that Naruto was looked after, even if he had to do it in secret. And he was especially glad to have Anko on his side, as well.

They'd picked each other up after the tragedies of twelve years ago, after all, and trusted each other implicitly. Both wore masks, that they only ever let down in each others' presence. One lost soul to another, seeing in each other what they could never find in anyone else.

* * *

><p>"I thought I said I didn't want to see you again."<p>

"You're a terrible liar. And you're drunk."

"My prerogative…what day is it?"

"Thursday, I think. Getting close to October. Can I count on you to provide a gift this year?"

"I still don't see the point in getting presents for a dead person."

"Humor me. You're honoring his spirit that way."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Alright then, here, take this."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Wrap it up in a box with nice paper or something. I don't really care if you bury it with him or pawn it or whatever. It's bad luck and I don't want to see it anymore."

"I can't take this from you."

"Well, it's all I have to give right now. Call it a loan, if you want. So long as I never see it again in this lifetime."

"I was thinking something less sentimental, like a jutsu scroll perhaps…"

"The dead have no need of jutsu. And I have no need of that."

"You're an odd woman sometimes."

"Aren't you leaving yet? To go do some 'research' perhaps?"

"Tomorrow. Tonight we drink to the memory of the departed."

"Fine, but only if you're buying."

* * *

><p>October tenth, eleventh birthday. It felt like only yesterday that he was turning ten, and now another year had gone by. As usual, nobody noticed, nobody mentioned, and nobody celebrated. All right, that wasn't exactly true; they celebrated, yes, but it wasn't for him and he wasn't invited. Festival days, the day that the Yondaime defeated the monster demon, Kyuubi, and the day he died. Naruto actually hated his birthday, mostly because nobody chose to see it as such, but also because it was the day a beloved leader was taken away from the city.<p>

On this day, the village hidden in the leaves had lost a warrior unlike any other. One that was strong and compassionate, powerful and wise despite his youth. A man of the people, he knew that much. Or at least he had been until a monster attacked. Three days of fighting later and the beast was dead, as was the Yondaime. At least, that's what everyone told him. Naruto, of course, knew better; he just played along for now, letting them pretend that he was ignorant of the reason that they hated him.

On this day, while everyone was out celebrating, or getting piss drunk, Naruto snuck off to the graveyard and the fancy memorial stone therein, looking at his reflection in the polished obsidian of the marker. Most ninja were cremated, and then laid to rest in family shrines; in times of war or disaster mass graves were dug in battlefields, their names etched into monuments like the one that had gone up a month after the Kyuubi attack. Naruto knew all about it, since it had its own special area in the graveyard, almost a shrine unto itself. Rarely, a ninja would earn enough respect or renown to warrant something like the cenotaph he looked at now. Being the Hokage was a pretty good way to get a marker like that.

_Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze, Hero to Konoha, Slayer of the Demon,_ read the plaque. It didn't list him as being survived by anybody, naturally; such a thing was a matter for the Hall of Records. What it did offer was the duration of his life, and the duration of his leadership. Eight years, during which time he'd completely restructured the way Konoha operated, and was still operating. It had even allowed a pathetic foundling like himself the chance to be something more than an orphan.

Naruto believed he came from a ninja family, and every year on his birthday he searched the various memorial stones and monuments for someone sharing his family name. Try as he might, though, it never changed. If there were other Uzumaki in the world, they weren't written down. If it was because of the beast slumbering inside him, or some other reason, it still bothered him that there were no others here in the graveyard, to his knowledge anyway. An hour of searching the graveyard passed, and eventually he gave up on finding someone related to him. He couldn't ask the record keepers for information; they always told him the same thing, that the proof he sought was not available, and then gently but firmly had him removed.

Returning to his apartment as the sun began to set, the apprentice ninja ignored the drunken belching coming from the alleyway, the clatter of dice not interesting him tonight and neither the promise of mahjong or cards. The old fart with the wet cough wasn't hanging around the foyer to bother him, so he must be out at the hospital again. Naruto kept telling the geezer to spend his money on treatment instead of booze, but hell if he could make him listen. He understood, too; some days, drowning in alcohol was the only way for the old man to forget his pain.

Unlocking his door, Naruto disarmed the traps and went to check on his stash, moving the floorboard aside. Good, everything was still there. Shucking his jacket onto the bed and wandering out into the kitchen to prepare some food, Naruto paused, looking at the small pile of gifts sitting on the table.

"It's too early for New Year's," he commented to nobody in particular. "Let's see who the gifts are from. No name, no name, Old Man, Miyuki, Iruka-sensei, no name… "Well, might as well open them up." Out of the corner of his eye Naruto spotted a small cake in a plastic box, waiting for him to cut into it. Opening the first and smallest box, the golden-haired boy stared at the green crystal necklace. It was from one of the no-names, and had no card, either; with a shrug, Naruto put it on, adjusting easily to the miniscule weight. Having the charm felt…right somehow, as if it belonged here with him.

His second gift was a brace of kunai, high-quality steel at that, and a calligraphy set, as well; again without a name but the card was written in Sasuke's style, telling him to get stronger as soon as possible. The third gift had to be from Miyuki. She'd gotten him a cookbook, of all things, and a note telling him not to eat so much ramen all the time. Briefly he wondered if the former kunoichi was the one who brought him the fresh food every week, then put the thought out of his mind to open the gift from Iruka. And what a doozy it turned out to be.

"Iruka…thanks." Inside the large box was a new outfit to replace the slowly degrading orange and blue that the aspiring shinobi wore. Taking it out and looking it over, Naruto then folded it up with shaky hands, placing the clothes back into the box from whence they'd come, and the box itself to go into the hiding spot underneath his floor.

From the Hokage he'd been given a jutsu scroll, something to fiddle with in his spare time, and another book, this one on sealing techniques. The note said it had once belonged to his father, and for that it went right next to the outfit and his strongbox. He'd be taking it out regularly, though, along with the scroll, to read and practice in his free time (of which he had plenty). His last gift was somewhat odd; a half-finished book, that when Naruto read through some of the pages left him scarlet-faced with embarrassment. The note included wasn't in any handwriting that Naruto recognized, despite being crisp and clean, easy to mimic.

_Sorry to give you something like this,_ it read, _though I figured I'd let you finish the story for me. I've been having some writer's block lately and what I think I need is a fresh perspective. If it sells well, I'll give you a cut of the profits and a writing credit on the next one, if I happen to need your help with that as well._

_When you're done, just leave it with the Old Man. He'll make sure I get it. Oh, and make absolutely every effort to use my handwriting if you can; it'll be good training for later. Word has it your henge skills are beyond comparison, and for an aspiring shinobi deception of that level is a good skill to have. Remember, the life of a ninja isn't all power techniques and flashy combat moves. From one ninja to another, a bit of advice: subtlety equals substance. Hopefully you'll get what that means._

Shrugging again, Naruto folded up the boxes that the presents had come in and set the wrapping paper aside, opening the cake and taking it out of the box. He'd only take a single slice for himself; the rest he'd share with Iruka and Miyuki, probably the only two adults in his life besides the Hokage who didn't look down on him. His classmates were more tolerable—actively friends with Kiba and Chouji, while Shikamaru was just sort of _there_—despite the fact that as many kids as adults apparently shunned him. Oh well, they didn't have to _like_ him, not really, as long as they accepted the truth of his existence.

As long as he had that, it would be enough.

* * *

><p>"I still feel like he should have people celebrating it with him. It's not right to go it alone like that."<p>

"Well at least he gets presents. From people that actually care about him, somewhat. I'm wondering who gave him that necklace, though."

"It wasn't you?"

"No, I didn't have time to get him a gift this year, and I know you didn't, either."

"I'm not too good at picking out presents. Plucking out eyeballs, maybe, but I don't think he'd want those on his kitchen table."

"Probably not. I'm going to go visit Sensei. Are you coming along?"

"No, I'm going home and getting drunk. What are you getting me for _my_ birthday?"

"How about a mission out of the city, with only one guard…someplace secluded, like the coast?"

"It sounds nice, but I can't. You know I can't, damn it. I wish I could, I really do. What do you see in me, anyway?"

"A lot of things, really. Mostly, I see someone I care about too much to leave alone."

"Maybe if you can get them to lift the surveillance, I'll consider it."

"We'll see what I can manage. The old man owes me a favor anyway. You've been behaving yourself."

"Liar. You're just saying that to get into my underpants."

"I don't need to lie to get your pants off."

"True enough. Join me for a drink?"

"Gladly."

* * *

><p>"Well, I've got the final roster of graduates here. Take time to look it over, and get back to me as soon as possible with your selections." Iruka grinned broadly at the gathered jounin. Technically, they outranked him, but for a few days more the thirty genin-elect were still his students, and if any of the ten shinobi selected to test this batch of graduates fussed over it, well, Naruto wasn't the only one who could pull crazy shit. "You've got a week to think about it so don't hurt yourselves trying." Teachers needling instructors was a time-honored tradition, especially since many of the students weren't going to survive the trials they faced—sometimes literally. He'd done his best to prepare them; from here on out it was up to the jounin to make sure they prospered.<p>

Waiting until Iruka had left to peruse the list of candidates, Kakashi fought back a smile that would've torn through his mask. _So, the little brat made it through, huh? And with the Shadow Clone no less. Impressive, given that anyone else would've died trying. And using it to beat the tar out of Mizuki—he should get paid for a B-rank, at least. Still, he needs a hell of a lot more work; he definitely takes after his mother._ Looking at the names, Kakashi wondered about who should fill the other two slots on his team. It was almost a given that the others would try to pawn Sasuke off on him, purely because of the Sharingan. To him that was a rather foolish move, as he hadn't even manifested it yet, and if the Uchiha survivor did manage to at some point it wasn't as if Kakashi really understood all that much about it beyond what he'd learned through trial and error. No, he decided he wasn't going to take Sasuke. If and when he developed the Sharingan, then he could volunteer for extra training beyond whatever he got from whomever he ended up with. Kurenai was a good choice.

"I think I've made up my mind already," the copycat said after a mean ten minutes of deliberation. The others stopped their discussion briefly to look at him, with varying levels of amusement. Of the ten gathered he figured seven thought he was picking early so he could get them early and fail them early. The actual team announcements weren't to be made for a week, but that didn't stop some people from trying to get a head-start. "I'll take…Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and…Hyuuga Hinata."

Kurenai blanched noticeably and stepped forward to address Kakashi directly, velvet-red eyes glaring at a point somewhere two inches above his nose. She definitely did not look pleased, and was actively trying to burn a hole in his frontal lobe with her stare, or so it would seem.

"Any reason why you want to take Hinata away from me, Kakashi?" Oh, those smooth tones…but no, he was already promised to another.

"Simple: Naruto has power, but no control, while Sakura has control, but no power. I figure that if I put Hinata in there to balance them out, they might actually see where they're lacking. That and I don't really want to take Sasuke, or put him on a team with anyone who will spend more time crushing on him than training." He was well aware that in her own observations Kurenai had come to much the same conclusion as the others who stood the best chance of passing, and between himself, Asuma and Kurenai, being the most experienced, they got first pick.

"Then why not take Shino or Kiba instead of sticking Uzumaki with two girls? Or, hell, put Hinata, Sakura and Ino on the same team and shuffle everyone else around randomly?"

"Because for one those two would spend more time fighting than training and also…I think it would be good for them. I'm pretty sure nobody's going to try to break up the Ino-Shika-Cho combination; it works too well. Why don't you take it before Asuma snaps them up?" Kurenai looked thoughtful, as if she could see Kakashi's reasoning. It _would_ be good for Hinata to be set with someone she looked up to, yes, and maybe her attitude would push Sakura into improving as well… And she knew damn well that if Asuma grabbed the Ino-Shika-Cho that they'd probably just sit around all day twiddling their thumbs.

"I don't really pretend to know what's going on inside your head, Kakashi, but alright. I'll take them and…Asuma gets stuck with Sasuke, Kiba and Shino." The man Anko Mitarashi so affectionately called "scarecrow" grinned. It was imperceptible, though it was there. Asuma's life just got a lot harder.

"Don't I get a say in this?" the bearded jounin asked.

"No!" everyone else chorused.

* * *

><p>"You knew already?"<p>

"I've known since my tenth birthday. It actually made dealing with all those idiots easier. Not really more pleasant, but easier. It still sucks, but knowing the reasons behind things is less hurtful than thinking I've done something wrong just by being alive."

"So you figured it out early, huh? And you still want to protect these people."

"Sure, why not? It's what the Fourth picked me for, right? And if I don't get stronger, if I can't keep the fox from breaking free to take his revenge, then I'm not really living up to his hopes for me, am I?"

"That's one way to look at it…"

"Besides, even if they say stupid and hurtful things, they're still people. I can forgive them. I just have to prove I'm my own person, not the fox, right? And then they'll see they were wrong and I'll have already forgiven them, and they can go on with their lives without regret."

"That's how you're going to play it, then? I can put my support into that. But…who told you that you were…you?"

"The Kyuubi did, actually. It took me a couple of days to figure out that it was him, of course; then again he was helping me fix some problems so I was too busy doing that to complain too much about having a monster stuck in my belly. And then remember the module on genjutsu? How everyone had to get placed under one to figure out how to identify and escape from it? Well…"

"I recall you were catatonic for the rest of the day and we had to take you to the hospital to make sure you hadn't been inadvertently injured."

"Nah, I got out of it after about ten minutes—a lot slower than everyone else, I know—but I was…inside my head-space, talking to him. Just kind of getting to know him. I don't think anyone's tried to do that before."

"So it's a 'he', huh?"

"I don't know, for sure. He said something about being 'above the concept of gender', but for the sake of argument, yeah. I think he just likes jerking me around. He's got some damn good prank ideas, though!"

"Is that right?"

"Yup! Not as good as mine of course but asking him to think them up keeps him occupied. I think more than anything else he's glad to have someone to talk to."

"Sounds like you've got it all worked out, then."

"Not a chance! You know me, sensei. Take things as they come and hope for the best."

* * *

><p>Gone was the orange and blue jacket with matching neon orange pants, and thankfully he'd decided against the Bunraku paint. It wasn't really his style anyway. To get his picture taken, Naruto had surmised that he should go with something a little less…crazy for a change. Oh, he still had his favorite outfit, sure, but he was wearing his birthday gift today instead, getting his ID photo taken in the clothes Iruka had given to him on his eleventh birthday, that he felt somewhat ashamed to only be wearing now. He'd told his teacher that he treasured it too much to mess it up during training or one of the many, many fights he got into…at least it still fit, apparently.<p>

His 'new' outfit kept the black undershirt he liked to wear, and the jacket sported the elastic collar and red spiral emblem on the back, same as his old orange and blue garb; the similarities ended there. Naruto's favorite person had supplied him with a jacket that was so blue it bordered on indigo, and a particularly dark shade at that; it had some color to it, brownish-orange panels on the outside that went from his ribs down to his waist; the dark pants were of a similar color, cut loose to allow him quite a bit of freedom of movement, legs belled out to fit over the sandals that all ninja wore. Even the weapons pouches and sandals were darker in hue, the same color as the cloth of the hitai-ite he'd been given by Iruka. Headbands were available in a wide variety of colors and lengths, although most people stuck with the default Academy Blue that new ones came affixed to. Iruka's was a darker color, though, matching the shade of his chuunin uniform tint for tint. And that meant it matched Naruto's new clothes, also.

It wouldn't give the Old Man cause to make him re-take the photo, and it would look good in whatever publication he ended up in, provided he managed to gain that sort of notoriety. Of course, Naruto expected that from here on out he'd have more than just one picture of him taken, willfully or otherwise, and thoroughly planned to try and avoid winding up in _any_ village's Bingo Book. That was one sort of attention he didn't want.

Clasping the crystal hanging from his neck one last time, Naruto made sure it was visible and then squared his shoulders while affixing a confident smile to his face, staring at the cameraman impatiently. He tried not to let it show, though he was practically bursting with energy. Giddy with excitement, he could swear he felt his life changing already. Over and over, actually; Naruto was excited to see what else would change now that he was a real ninja.

Miyuki was waiting for him when he left the registration office, bonking him on the head good-naturedly. With only one hand she couldn't teach him any jutsu, but like promised he'd managed to become a genin-elect and she was going to teach him some exercises and simple sign-free techniques.

"So, squirt, you got this far, think you've got what it takes to go all the way?" The brown-eyed kunoichi with the lavender streaks in her black hair grinned down at the boy, still wearing her own hitai-ite even if she wasn't on active duty anymore. "Things are just going to get tougher from here on out, you know; sure you're up for it?"

"Hey, you bet your ass, Miyu-chan." Falling into step beside the woman who treated him like a little brother, Naruto flashed one of his famously infectious grins. "You know what, we should go out to celebrate or something, yeah!"

"Whoa, kid, don't get too worked up." Miyuki's heart-shaped face drew tight into a scowl, stopping him in mid-stride. "Just because you've got that headband doesn't mean you've made it, not yet. I saw how many graduated this year, enough for ten full teams and there aren't that many jounin to go around. Usually when this happens they have a secondary test to weed out the ones who aren't ready to advance."

"This isn't like that bullshit Mizuki told me, is it?"

"When have I ever lied to you, Naruto?"

"There was that time you said that cat found an owner when it had actually died…"

"You were five, squirt, I didn't want to break your cute little heart. No, I'm not bullshitting you. My graduating class was big, too, and I actually got sent back twice. Between you and me, I didn't graduate until I was fourteen. Still, hard work pays off and sooner or later you learn the stuff they can't teach you."

"Wow, really? You never told me that. I guess I should've pried a bit more, huh?"

Miyuki shrugged, toying with a lavender strand that was only a few shades darker than the periwinkle hue of a Hyuuga's irises. "Probably, but there is such a thing as being too inquisitive. Say, why don't we go get some dango, kid? My treat!"

"Ramen!"

"Dango!"

"Flip you for it."

"Okay." Before Naruto could protest Miyuki had kicked his feet out from under him and sent him somersaulting, landing on his back after two full rotations. "I win! Dango it is!"

"So…not…fair…" Picking himself up and dusting off his clothes, Naruto chased after her, racing Miyuki to her favorite dango stand. Green pendant glinting in the sunlight, eagerness flashing in his blue eyes, he pulled ahead of her and turned to throw a taunt, moments before crashing into a mesh-clad torso. "Oh shit, um, sorry!" The box his victim had been carrying tumbled but didn't open, and that was probably the only reason that he didn't have a kunai pressed to his neck, or worse, his wallet.

"Naruto, you should really watch where you're going! Sorry, Mitarashi-san, he's sort of a bonehead."

"Don't I know it," the slightly younger female grumbled, hauling Naruto up by his collar from where he'd landed on his back for the second time that day. There was a slight trickle of blood from his nose, that wasn't from accidentally having seen up Anko's skirt; the young Uzumaki had rewritten the mystery book he'd been given on his eleventh birthday from scratch, and it took more than a flash of skin to get him worked up. Running headfirst into rock-hard abs covered by armor mesh on the other hand could and did cause some injury, however slight.

"Why is it everywhere I go people are after my neck?" the whiskered boy asked, to nobody specific. "At least you didn't drop your dango…Mitarashi-san, you said? And um, if you did I would've bought you a fresh box and eaten the dirtied stuff, I promise!"

"Naruto," Miyuki began to scold him, "don't promise things like that! You shouldn't be eating food off the ground anyway!" She got a tongue in response, as he could and did: Naruto hated to waste food more than an Akimichi.

"I'd make him do it, believe me." Anko narrowed her eyes and finally drew Miyuki's name out of memory. There weren't that many one-armed kunoichi going around that she knew of. "Weren't you supposed to be keeping the kid out of trouble?"

"Mitarashi-san, this _is_ Naruto we're talking about. 'Trouble' is probably his code-name."

"Hello, you two, I'm right here!" The kunoichi pair ignored him and, frustrated, Naruto reached into his waist pouch, past the original draft of _Icha Icha Midnight_ (which he thought sucked and was glad that his version was the one selling like hotcakes among both sexes) and into the compartment holding his tags. Drawing out a pair of sutras, he stuck one inside the lid of the dropped dango box and slipped the other one in the waist of Miyuki's pants, before wandering away from the scene.

Twenty seconds later the tags went off, filling the area with smoke. Naruto grinned and performed a henge while the chaos reigned, thanking that book on fuinjutsu once more for all that it had taught him. It was time to get scarce for a few hours, and prepare for the true genin exam. First things first, though, he needed to get his team and assignments were still three days away. Well, he'd show some patience. This time.

* * *

><p>"Aerosolized paint sealed into exploding tags?"<p>

"Pretty damn good, too. I know they don't sell those at the ninja supply store so they had to have been hand-crafted."

"It would explain why everything within fifty feet of you is currently whiter than hospital linens. But not how he managed to get you with them."

"Hid the tag in the lid of my dango box. At least the food didn't get painted; I'd have killed him, ANBU or not."

"And…how did you manage to avoid getting painted, Tachibana-san?"

"I'm practically his big sister and I felt his hand on my butt, so I henged a log and swapped with it before the tag could stick. The basic skills are always the best."

"Of course. First Iruka, now him. I wonder if Umino-san was secretly teaching some of his pranking skills to the boy."

"Iruka, a prankster? I find that hard to believe."

"Oh, yes, he was, one of the best. The paint that sticks to everything but food was one of his inventions as a matter of fact. Interesting little twist on it, though."

"Is that why he's stuck teaching instead of running missions? Because he pulled one prank too many?"

"Believe it or not, he's an Academy instructor at his own request. This conversation isn't about Iruka though."

"Right. What sort of punishment do we give him?"

"Kakashi Hatake."

"That's very cruel, sir."

* * *

><p>"My first impression of you is…that I don't like you very much." As a matter of fact, he was lying through his teeth, but they didn't need to know that. Swiping the chalk dust out of his hair, Kakashi fixed the trio with a hard stare. Sakura was looking crestfallen that she hadn't been put on a team with "Sasuke-kun", while Hinata…looked relieved to be on a team at all. Only Naruto was showing any real emotion in his reaction, scowling at the jounin as if he'd stepped in something foul. Knowing the boy as he did, though, Kakashi saw a deeper disappointment in the lad's eyes. He clearly thought that his new teacher was somewhat of an ass.<p>

The Hyuuga girl was harder to read, on the surface appearing impassive and a few levels down, as well; at her core, though, he saw an almost fanatical eagerness to please, a willingness to sacrifice everything she was for the slightest demand made to her by a particular other… Contrast that to Haruno, the petal-hued scholar who had incredible control but was so pathetically easy to figure out. Of the three, he felt only Naruto had any real potential right off the bat—the others had it as well, but he'd have to work to bring it out.

_Why'd I have to take the Hyuuga? If I'd left the original assignments alone, then Naruto and Sasuke would probably have ended up pushing each other and I wouldn't have had to do a thing, and the only real hitch in the group would be miss flower over here…_ Palming his face inwardly, Kakashi rolled his shoulders in silent resignation.

"Whether I like you or not, however, is not why I'm here. Come along. And Naruto? That won't work on me." Caught out, the blond fixed a real scowl on his face, dispelling the shadow clone that had been sneaking up behind the jounin instructor with a pair of tags, one a stinkbomb and the other a flash-bang.

_Damn it, this guy's good_, he thought to himself, maintaining the scowl if for no other reason than to make it so his surprise didn't register to the two kunoichi. _That arrogant attitude really pisses me off!_

Leading them away from the classroom where they'd been waiting for him, Kakashi finally stopped in a small park, sitting down on a bench, leaving the three to take seats on the grass, looking up at him, or as he preferred to think of it, looking up _to_ him. The rooftop garden was rather nice, and a good place for them to get to know each other, and if they made the cut then hopefully this would become one of their favorite spots, the place they came when they needed, as a team, to stop and relax.

"Alright then, I think it's time we introduced ourselves to each other. My name is Kakashi Hatake, jounin instructor. I don't feel like telling you about my hobbies, likes or dislikes, but I'll tell you that I specialize in ninjutsu. I'm sure you know each other from the Academy, but how well do you _know_ each other? Hinata, tell me about Sakura." Suddenly singled out, the lavender-hued girl blushed and swallowed her apprehension, poking her fingers together as she fought to remember some details about her new teammate.

"Um…s-she likes...Sasuke-kun and um…painting…and…trivia games? And she specializes in… I don't know. I'm sorry."

"Well, you got at least one thing right. I'll bet you didn't know that she uses the trivia games as a means to improve the speed at which she can memorize and recall information." Two sets of eyes swung over to the rapidly self-conscious Sakura, making her shrink into herself somewhat. "Since we're focused on you now, Sakura, why don't you tell us some things about Naruto?"

"Let's see…uh…he likes ramen to a fault, and he's friends with a one-armed ninja named Miyuki… His specialties are…pulling pranks and henge?" Naruto was just shaking his head with a grin, leaned back to stare at the sky. Guessing that he'd be called on after Kakashi spilled some beans about him, he began to prepare himself mentally.

"So you do pay a little bit of attention to him, after all, despite all that violence I hear you enact against him. I bet you don't know that he enjoys horticulture and writes his own tags, do you?"

"No, sensei, I didn't know that…"

"Naruto—"

"My turn, huh? So who do I dish info on? You or Hinata-chan?"

"Hinata, if you please."

"Are you sure? I might know more than I let on and I wouldn't want to make Sakura-chan feel inadequate. I'm the dead-last, remember? What could I possibly know about these two that would be even close to right?"

"Just say _something_, why don't you? This is to figure out how much you know about each other."

"Okay, okay, fine. Hinata-chan, you're five years older than your sister, Hanabi, dislike seafood, especially crab and shrimp, and your favorite activity is pressing flowers." Finished, Naruto glared at the jounin for making him give up some of his hard-won information like that. "There, are you happy, scarecrow? Oh yeah next time you're late because you were out in the woods near the Nara compound necking with someone who likes to bite, have the decency to be honest about it!"

"H-how would you know something like that, Naruto-kun?" Hinata ventured the question out of genuine curiosity, blushing as she asked the question and not sure if she wanted to know the answer.

"His left eye is covered, Hinata-chan, so he has to turn his head to look at something outside the peripheral vision of his right eye, and when he turns his head to the right he does it slower than to the left. There are also crushed leaves on his shoes, and that particular variety of tree is grown and planted specifically by Shikamaru's family because it keeps its leaves year-round, offering plenty of food for the deer they keep around."

_Thwack._ Sakura's fist left a knot growing on top of Naruto's skull, and he started rubbing it with a sullen look on his face. "Whatcha go and do that for?"

"What the hell do you mean what did I do that for? You're telling me you were just playing dumb the whole time in the Academy?"

"N-not at all, Sakura-chan, honest! I just…well, I pick up on people easier, that's all. I sorta had to learn how when I was younger. I didn't mean to…upset you…" Voice quiet, Naruto stood and addressed Kakashi directly. "Sorry, sensei. I'm sure you're a good teacher but I don't think I can work on this team."

"Not so fast, Naruto. You quit when I say you can, not before. Now that we're all _friends_, why don't we have a little test?"

"Test, sensei..?" Hinata sounded as small as Naruto felt, looking up at their instructor timidly. "Oh, that's right. To sort us out, and see if we get made full genin, provisional genin, or sent back to the Academy."

"Huh?" A certain red and black-clad boy squinted at the faintly scarlet girl throughout her recitation. "You mean we're _not_ ninja yet?"

"No, Naruto, you aren't. The number of students that graduate is usually much lower, but this year we have to run secondary tests. As far as the screening process is concerned, there are far too many to make full genin. Like Hinata said, most of the graduates aren't going to become full genin, for various reasons as determined by the jounin assigned to judge them. We have to keep the number of active ninja down so there's enough work for everyone."

"Oh, I get it. So the Academy is there to make sure we have the basic skills we need to operate as shinobi, and the jounin-sensei exist to teach us more advanced stuff and watch our progress? Pretty neat! We'll just have to work hard to earn your approval so you'll pass us, then, won't we?"

Watching Naruto's grin, Kakashi was wondering if he'd been playing dumb again; Sakura, listening to Naruto's determination, found herself hard-pressed to disagree. He seemed so certain, so assured that they'd pass Kakashi's test and earn a place among the elite society of Konoha, that they'd become strong and respected, that in the end she couldn't say no to the eager look he held. _How does he manage that, anyway? Idiot._ Disparaging thoughts aside, though, she had to admit that he did have a surprising amount of observational skill, apparently, that he'd somehow kept hidden from everyone who claimed to matter to him. She had a feeling, though, that if pressed he'd claim, rightly so, that nobody ever bothered to ask and nobody wanted to learn anything about him.

Except for maybe Hinata. Sakura couldn't help but notice how her fellow kunoichi's eyes kept sliding over to the scar-cheeked boy, who to her own memory was remarkably different from the brightly-colored goofball who was always skipping out on classes. He looked so serious now, even if he were still wearing that take-me-or-leave-me smile; if she had to say anything, Sakura would think he looked determined in a way that she'd never seen before and for the first time in years she felt…inadequate. Kakashi was saying something, so she tuned back in.

* * *

><p>Walking besides Hinata while Naruto took the fore, badgering Kakashi with questions as they headed to some training ground or another that rested atop and just beyond the Hokage Monument, Sakura suppressed a frown as she contemplated the young man in the muted tones. She supposed that the colors could still be considered orange and blue, just much darker than what he normally wore. Hinata nudged her shoulder, indicating the insatiably noisy Naruto with a blush.<p>

"Yeah, Hinata-san? What about him?"

"H-how much do you know about Naruto-kun, anyway? You…um…you looked pretty unsure of yourself during the introductions."

"Ah, I can't say I know him that well at all, really. If we pass this test though I'll probably have to learn more. If we're going to be a team we'll probably have to spend a lot of time together so we'll likely end up knowing things about each other that people don't usually find out until they get married or something."

"I was wondering something." Used to hearing shyness from the easily-flustered girl, Sakura was surprised to note an undercurrent of fortitude in the alabaster-eyed Hinata's voice. "Why do you always hit Naruto-kun so much?"

"Why wouldn't I? He's loud, obnoxious, always pulling pranks, never seems to shut up and is always asking me out on dates…as if I'd want to do that when there's Sasuke to consider!" She didn't put too much thought into her words, letting them come without hesitation while staring at the sky and so missed the ire on Hinata's face while she spoke her grievances. "He's always getting into trouble and everyone's saying he's the worst kind of delinquent. I'm sure you've seen him being chased by ANBU and angry villagers before."

"That's the Naruto you see, Sakura-san? Just what people want you to see?"

"What else is there?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. You, Haruno-san, are just like everyone else who doesn't see what a good person Naruto can be and so…I hate you." Lips set in a thin line Hinata picked up the pace until she walked alongside the blond, listening as he told some off-color joke and laughing with him even though it was a little outside her tastes. Sakura strayed behind, bewildered by the Hyuuga's unexpected attitude.

_What was that all about? It's just Naruto. Everyone knows he's a disaster waiting to happen. Hell, it took him three tries to graduate! Some ninja he'll turn out to be…_

* * *

><p>"Ugh, I am dog-tired."<p>

"You look like you got run over by a cart."

"It would be pretty accurate. That crazy asshole kept us awake for twenty-four hours straight, attacking us the whole time. I think he gave us about an hour break somewhere after midnight, but other than that none of us got any sleep."

"But you passed though, right? I didn't see any of you adding your names to the provisional roster or headed to the registration office to apply for another year at the Academy."

"Yeah, we passed, first team in ten years that he's given his seal of approval to. You lucked out; not only is your sensei attractive as all hell but you actually got some rest last night."

"No we didn't."

"Huh? Don't tell me she pulled the same stuff that scarecrow did."

"Worse. We spent the night escaping genjutsu and evading traps she set up while we were under her spells."

"Ouch. Everyone's okay though, I take it."

"Yup. And beardo passed his team, too. So Teams Seven, Eight and Ten are all full genin with everyone else…I was expecting as much, though. Though I thought for sure they were going to put you on a team with…"

"Don't mention that jerk's name to me, please? If I hear it one more time in any context I'll have to kill him on principle."

"Try not to get me involved, eh? Explaining to my old man why I just so happen to have aided and abetted in the untimely demise of a fellow shinobi is too much effort."

"Didn't mean literally."

"I did. You're right about one thing, though."

"What's that?"

"She is attractive as all hell. Then again you got two of the top-rated kunoichi of our class on your team…I pity you."

"Eh, they're not so bad. Easily distracted, maybe, but good enough to keep up."

"Wait three years. You'll wish you were in duck-butt's place."

* * *

><p>It was a tired Sakura Haruno that staggered through the door of her home after nearly forty hours of being awake. First he had put them through twenty-four hours of constant hell, picking apart their weaknesses one by one and more than once she'd thought she was going to die. Kakashi Hatake was, in her opinion, a madman of the highest caliber. Not only had he been doing his level best to finish them off, but things actually got worse for her when she'd been separated from the rest of her squad. Fortunately Hinata's Byakugan had allowed them to locate her quickly and then Naruto had released her from the genjutsu, letting her terrified fists beat against his chest ineffectually; after that things had been a little smoother for them. At the end of the day he'd announced that the three genin had passed, saying he had been testing their teamwork abilities or some bullshit like that.<p>

And then he'd given them an hour to eat and get washed up before having them report to the Hokage's office for a mission—a simple D-rank of course, nothing more than pocket money. It was demeaning but after the nightmare of Kakashi's test painting fences was a comparative paradise. Neither Hinata nor Naruto objected, either, though she could tell that the normally loudmouthed boy was secretly simmering. Out of all of them he'd gotten the worst punishment and yet, aside from a few tears in his jacket he bore no signs of the struggle. Odd.

So tired was Sakura that she actually found herself incapable of sleep, so she ignored her parents for the moment to head upstairs and take a much-needed bath; the hour that Kakashi granted them earlier had only been enough for a quick shower, and some very calorie-rich foods. For once she was glad of Naruto's ramen obsession, as the noodles were a relative godsend: filling, easy on the stomach and tasty. Her stomach rumbled again at the thought and she cursed her diet, and thanked the stars that her teammates were knowledgeable about edible plants and berries, or else she might have collapsed due to hunger.

Sitting in the bathtub, letting the hot water ease the ache out of her bones (though it could do nothing for her cuts and bruises), Sakura reflected on Hinata's words to her with a frown. What did she mean by them, anyway? As far as she could tell Hinata had never expressed distaste towards anyone before in her life. Thankfully it didn't seem to get in the way of her teamwork ability but still, to be told by the shyest girl in their academy class that she hated Sakura didn't make any sense at all.

And Naruto…where did he get all that stamina from? How could he heal so quickly, despite all the injuries inflicted on him? More than once he'd thrown himself in the way of an attack, sheltering the two girls so they could launch a counterassault on Kakashi. Did he think they were weak, did he think _she_ was weak, needing to be protected all the time? The way he looked at Hinata in between skirmishes didn't suggest that he did, so why would he do something so foolish?

The answer was not forthcoming and would not for some time. Sakura, in the meanwhile, fell asleep in the bath.

* * *

><p>A less-than-fresh Hinata Hyuuga stumbled through the gates of the family manor, not bothering to hide her fatigue from her father or anyone else that might be observing her. She was far too gone to care at the moment. All through the last year at the academy she had been getting hints that she would end up on Kurenai's team (there was no doubt that Hinata would pass, naturally, being a Hyuuga); to have that expectation shattered was quite a shock to the girl. She hadn't had much time to dwell on it, though, as Kakashi was apparently dead-set on keeping them occupied. During their first mission she had the opportunity to reflect on some of the rumors floating around—civilians liked to gossip, after all—and while painting the fences, a juicy one had met her ears.<p>

It concerned a particular individual that the general population referred to, colloquially, as the 'demon brat', an appellation she'd heard tossed around by more than a few senior shinobi as well. More than once the civilian eyes had been turned toward the third member of Team Seven as they spoke those two particular words, reminding Hinata that most people weren't too fond of Naruto; the rumor, however, was that he'd managed to break into the Hokage's tower without help, steal a scroll and learn a forbidden technique from it.

The rumor did have some corroboration, if the second genin test had been any indication. Naruto, she'd discovered, knew a technique that was at least A-rank if not higher, and had apparently used this more complex clone technique to gain a passing grade from Iruka. She already knew from classroom antics that Naruto's henge technique was several grades above Academy standards, and Hinata knew from her own observations that he had energy potential way beyond any of his peers. She hadn't known that he was so good at infiltration, though, as the Hokage's tower was usually quite heavily guarded. It was possible that he'd used his transformation skill to gain entry, though not likely.

All of these things were on her mind as she knelt in front of her father, dead tired and only barely managing to hang on to some shred of the proper decorum demanded of the Main House. Some days she wished he would just have her branded and get it over with so she could stop pretending to be something she wasn't. Her irritation must have shone through on her face because she heard some very uncharacteristic words from her father.

"Is something wrong?" Hiashi asked of her. The casualness of his question hid the concern he felt. Some might accuse Hiashi of being cold and unfeeling, and some even went as far as to claim that he was intentionally abusive towards his older daughter. It was not true in the slightest.

"No, father," was the soft reply. "I was merely thinking of recent events. Kakashi-sensei is a hard taskmaster. Nothing I am not familiar with."

"You are not with Yuuhi, then?" Stroking his chin, the clan head lost himself in thought momentarily. He had been certain that Hinata would be placed under the kunoichi, not Hatake. It was unusual for a clan head's request to be ignored, but not unprecedented, either. "Very well. Your squadmates?"

"Haruno Sakura," she answered calmly, regaining her composure. "I do not think I like her much. She is book-smart, but lacks practical skill."

"And the other genin?" Hiashi expected to hear the name of another kunoichi, hopefully one from a respected ninja family. She did not have to be from a clan to be skilled.

"Uzumaki Naruto. I…believe he will surprise those who disregard him. I know his Academy scores weren't the best, but I have faith that he will not hinder his team."

"And why do you think that, daughter? Please do not tell me that you have personal feelings for him." Paling visibly, which for a Hyuuga is nothing short of amazing, Hinata began poking her fingers together in the nervous habit she'd developed in her early days at the Academy.

"He is hard-working and learns quickly, father, when anyone bothers to actually spend any effort on him. In my personal opinion they both have decent potential to excel. Moreso than me."

"Don't sell yourself short, Hinata. You have done well enough. Go clean up and rest. I will have Hitomi bring you a meal to eat at your leisure. You are excused." Hinata brightened slightly, even after she noticed the slightly aggravated expression on his face. It was subtle and had to be actively searched for; even so she could see it, and was relieved that for once she did not seem to be the reason for his annoyance.

Hiashi for his part was mulling over the two ninja assigned to work with his daughter. Haruno he knew little enough about, other than that she performed well on the academic portion of the preliminary examination and was reported to have the highest control of any graduate in thirteen years; the bigger concern was Uzumaki. He had been there the night that the sealed infant had been found and was well aware of who the boy's mother was, and if he was anything like her the next few years were going to get interesting. It still perturbed him that Kushina had turned down each and every attempt to court her, although Shiori was a welcome substitute that Hiashi was glad that Hinata took after. He only hoped that the girl developed her mother's strength soon.

Otherwise he might have to pull her from the shinobi forces for her own safety. Too many desired the Hyuuga eyes for themselves, and Hinata could always be trained for other duties. He would have to keep a very close eye on Uzumaki, though. He had a tendency to cause trouble.

* * *

><p>The boy in question was not as tired as he should be, all things considered, but he still desired sleep. As he finished washing up and laid his half-dressed body on the thin mattress he'd scrounged up from a second-hand store, and for sticker price at that, he felt the subtle tug at his consciousness indicating that his passenger wanted to have a little chat with him.<p>

_Stop it, fox. The mind needs to rest as much as the body._ Still the call came, despite his protests, despite his desire to simply sleep; he should have been ready, though, to speak with the Kyuubi after all the hell he'd just been put through. His guest had the ability to monitor his chakra network, though, and if he wanted to talk, then perhaps something had been knocked loose. Sighing in resignation, Naruto let his body succumb, while his mind delved into the soulspace where his prisoner lurked.

"What is it this time?" he grumbled, appearing before the sluice gate that blocked the immense energies of the Kyuubi from escaping into the world. "Nothing looks broken."

"**Of course nothing is broken. I reinforced your coils against damage from inept ninja, remember? That's not what I wanted to talk to you about. How would you like to know a little about your bloodline?"** Kyuubi smirked behind the bars, reading his jailor's expression. He'd caught the little human's interest on the first try. Good.


	2. Sharing Valuable Information

Kakashi read the report one more time, coming to a decision while Anko monopolized his shower. It wasn't unusual to have the special jounin over, of course, though she didn't often stay longer than needed. Keeping up appearances, she called it, though he was certain it had something to do with the fact that she was nervous over anyone finding out she was in a relationship, and with him of all people. Sooner or later he'd break her of this shyness. He didn't care if other shinobi would whisper, or if rumors would start going around involving the two of them. What Anko did on her own time was her business; as long as she came back to him in the end, Kakashi didn't mind in the slightest. He'd done the same. They trusted each other. He just wished he could get her to spend time with him out in public, where people could see.

He was an adult and so was she, and if anyone else had a problem with them being together, doing intimate things, subtle things like holding hands or touching shoulders or (and this last part was important) cuddling while sitting together, well tough shit. He didn't want Anko thinking he was doing anything to protect her, though, lest she resent it. That wasn't to say he wouldn't rise to her defense when the situation called for it, but nor would he shelter her. They were both too proud for that.

A smile quirked across his lips as Anko started singing something, not really paying attention to the proper lyrics. As her voice caressed his ears, Kakashi folded the pages up and settled them in a pocket of his vest, currently flung over the back of a chair in his admittedly small apartment. Maybe when things turned serious he'd spring for a larger home, something with a nursery perhaps.

For the last two weeks, he'd been running his genin team into the ground. Team Kakashi had training in the mornings, missions in the afternoon, while he evaluated their skills both physical and mental. He hadn't kept very good tabs on his students while they were still in the Academy, and so was now trying to decide what sort of tasks they would be best suited to; Naruto was a natural at stealth, even ignoring his prodigious talent with henge, while Sakura had superior memory retention, proven when she showed the ability to recall the pertinent details of a mission briefing she'd only been allowed to look at for fifteen seconds. Hinata for her part was quite skilled at reading a person's intentions just by watching the way they walked, and her bloodline abilities were a definite asset in any situation. Though for now he focused on improving their physical prowess regarding taijutsu, ninjutsu and overall strength and endurance, he saw the potential for his team to become highly effective infiltrators.

Wet arms draped themselves around his neck and Kakashi turned his head in time to catch a kiss on the corner of his mouth as Anko leaned up on tip-toe to reach his face.

"What's on your mind?" She was still damp from the shower, or at least parts of her were. The more appreciative side of Kakashi noticed how her bust pressed into his back, and how a shapely leg wrapped around one of his own teasingly. Anko could be downright insatiable sometimes.

"Pondering my genin team, and what to make them into—they have a lot of untapped potential. Then again most of this year's graduates do." Squirming out of the serpent's grasp, Kakashi turned to face her and dismiss the developing pout with a soft touch of his lips to her own, drawing her over to the bed to collapse upon it, and pull her close. His fingers began raking through the deep violet strands soothingly, arms wrapped around her slender shoulders. "Their skills lend towards infiltration and espionage—Naruto especially, if the rumors are true."

"I wouldn't doubt it, Kakashi. Our boy," and for a very brief moment Anko wondered why in the world she thought of the brat in such a manner before dismissing it out of hand, "is the best at getting in where he's not supposed to go, and the best at hiding when he gets caught."

"Not surprising, given how often he's had to run away from people. It's getting better, though. People haven't been sending him as many of _those_ looks lately. Maybe it's the headband." A shiver ran through Kakashi's spine as his lover began to nibble at a particularly sensitive part of his chest, broadcasting her wants to him. Wants he'd be eager to satisfy, just as soon as he'd come to a decision. "Do you think they'll be able to handle it? I don't want any of them to fail, it's just that…"

Anko shushed him, a stern look in her eyes as her foreplay ceased, and the points of her nails dug ever so slightly into the skin at the base of his neck.

"None of that, Kakashi; have a little faith in them. They may be rookies, but they're strong. They aren't going to let you down. Now are you going to stop moping, or are you going to let _me_ down?" She grinned guilelessly at him, catching his lower lip in a fond nibble while her body shifted to straddle him. Disappointment flashed in her eyes when he didn't immediately respond, only to disappear when his hands gripped her, one on her rear, the other grabbing a handful of hair so he could move her ear close to his mouth.

"When have I ever let you down, Anko-chan?"

* * *

><p>Kurenai Yuuhi faced a dilemma. On the one hand, she was a genjutsu specialist, well-versed in how to bring someone's fantasies to life, as well as the best way to send someone into a screaming panic, all through the proper application of illusion. On the other hand, none of her three genin showed any talent for it, save perhaps Chouji, which was rather surprising given that his clan techniques leaned more towards front-line combat. She was quickly learning that the Akimichi clan's Baika no Jutsu required high chakra and control in equal measure; that the Ino-Shika-Cho trios usually worked as capture squads showed only that the potential cross-applications of the clan skills presented were being grossly overlooked. If she had to estimate, she would say Chouji easily had the largest reserves of any genin save Uzumaki, and oh how she would love to teach <em>him<em> some illusions— if not for the fact that she'd only be arming him with more weapons to prank people with.

Shikamaru, she was seeing, looked to be rather flexible, both in mind and in body; he could easily become a taijutsu specialist if necessary, especially if she could teach him how to use his Shadow Bind while on the move. That would also have the benefit of teaching him that battles were not fought with each side taking turns, instead with each party involved in the conflict acting constantly. Someone of his intellect, if given the ability to knock plans together on the fly and then execute them with a minimum of hesitation from his squadmates could become truly formidable, a force to be reckoned with. Complement that with strong physical skills and decent ninjutsu and the boy would be on the fast-track for Jounin. Granted, it ran contrary to his goals, but life didn't often leave room for personal plans. It just tended to happen.

Ino, while certainly not the lowest of the three in her estimation, needed some work. She had good control—not enough for genjutsu perhaps, but better than most kunoichi her age—but her reserves were poor and the Mind Transfer relied far too heavily on someone else to keep her safe. If there were some way for the girl to send a copy of herself into a target rather than abandoning her body altogether Kurenai might have a different opinion of the technique (and had said as much to Ino); at the moment however her focus was mainly on getting the girl's physical abilities up to par, which included her chakra capacity and reserves.

All in all they had the makings of a capture squad like their parents before them. If Kurenai had anything to say about it, however, the three would have a secondary specialization, though what that was she didn't know just yet. She meant to get their opinion and see what exactly they wanted to focus on with their ninja careers—barring Shikamaru, who had made it very plain from the outset what he wanted to do with his life.

At the moment she was having the three of them go through the tree-walking exercise, throwing blunted kunai at them every so often to make them move around instead of just going up and down, and so far it seemed to be working. After having given them a few pointers when she showed them the day after she'd approved them as genin, Kurenai had also dropped subtle hints that there was a way to expand their chakra into a sort of aura that would tell them which direction an attack was coming from. Predictably, Shikamaru had gotten it down first and Chouji last; surprisingly, Ino was the first to have refined it. They had different ranges, though; the Nara boy only extended his sense far enough to give himself time to dodge, Ino seemed comfortable keeping the limit of her perception where she could comfortably evade, and Chouji, as gentle as he was, actually tried countering his teacher's throw nine times out of ten.

They made for a rather interesting group. Collectively, they had a strong foundation; now it was her job to build something on it.

* * *

><p>"To what do I owe this pleasure?"<p>

"Thought I'd drop by and deliver my initial impressions of the team, now that I've had a couple of weeks with them."

"And your opinions so far?"

"The Inuzuka and Aburame work well together and have naturally complementary abilities. Getting stuck with Uchiha, however…"

"Is there a problem with him?"

"I'll be blunt. The boy is trouble. Doesn't like working with others, sacrifices team integrity for completing the mission, and insists on showboating—he's a ticking time bomb. I can't justify teaching him anything he could use to hurt somebody with because I honestly don't know if he'd turn it on his allies. If it weren't for his issues, I'd think about turning them into a recon/tracking team, but the way things are now, they don't trust him and for his part, Uchiha apparently thinks that being on a team will slow his progress. Supposing I don't figure out a way to get through to him soon would you consider apprenticing him to someone less tolerant of his B.S. and giving me a genin off the provisional roster?"

"If you can't bring him in line we'll send him back to the Academy for another year. If what you say is true then the preferential treatment he's received has been of no benefit whatsoever. Unfortunately I can't guarantee it wouldn't continue. Do what you have to, but keep an eye on him. If there's any sign that he might be turning traitor like his brother, take him out. Try not to kill him, but definitely subdue him. Too much is at stake for the Uchiha to _again_ make a mess of things."

"Yes sir. Hopefully I won't have to be bringing him here in chains—hopefully I'll be able to get him off his current path. What'd that Uzumaki boy say? There are no shortcuts? If I can't erase his current mindset then I'll slow him down as much as possible and hope he doesn't realize what I'm up to."

"Best to get to it, then."

* * *

><p>Naruto was having a debate. Not a very verbose debate, mind, but a debate all the same, and one of the most difficult choices that he had ever faced in his short life. Deciding to become a ninja had been easy enough. Picking out what clothes to wear to training in the morning didn't even come close. No, he was debating with his cargo whether to tell his teammates about the burden. Kyuubi was arguing against it, saying that it was too soon; Naruto on the other hand felt that they would find out eventually and if it happened in a situation where he wasn't in control of the discovery, the team could very well fall apart.<p>

In the end they compromised. Naruto would tell them, yes, but not yet, not until they had been together for at least three months and completed no fewer than five C-rank missions or one A-rank. That way they would have time to come to conclusions about Naruto on their own, which is what the boy really wanted anyway, time and opportunity to get to know and trust the container. He knew he couldn't prevent them from finding out, of course, it wasn't the sort of secret a person could keep even if he wanted to. Sooner or later would come the day when Naruto needed to draw on the bijuu's power to protect himself or those close to him, and then there would be no excuse to hide it any longer.

What he could tell them about now, though, was the supposed bloodline he had. It wasn't much, not to Naruto's thinking; despite that it was something of his family, the family he'd never gotten to know and didn't have any information about beyond a name. Kyuubi said that he might not have the ability at all, in the same way that other bloodline inheritors didn't always manifest the particulars of their heritage. Even so, Naruto was willing to try, and if it turned out that he couldn't reproduce the specific abilities his ancestors were said to have, maybe he could replicate the effects through other means.

His prisoner, when he wasn't being a big ball of malice and frustration, could be quite helpful if the mood suited him, and Naruto thought mostly to himself that he actually seemed to enjoy doing something besides pacing behind the bars of the sluice gate, demanding release. Or sleeping, which he did a fair bit of as well. Kyuubi advised his host to start small at first, try to chain objects rather than people, and barring that, attempt to link people together rather than hold them down. It was worth a shot, at least. This dilemma left his mind as the bridge where Team Seven met came into view, and for a moment Naruto had to fight the urge to wrinkle his nose at an unpleasant smell wafting from under the span that the two kunoichi of his team didn't seem to notice. If they had, they weren't showing it.

"So what do you think his excuse is going to be today?" Sakura asked him as soon as he came in range of hearing. "Personally, I think he'll use the black cat again; Hinata thinks it'll involve food. What about you?" In the past two weeks they'd learned a bit more about each other, most notably that for all her shyness, Hinata had a wicked sense of humor and some rather bawdy jokes she could barely tell through her stammering. Sakura as well was noticing things about her teammates, though at this point she wasn't ready to acknowledge that her opinion of the male member of Team Seven might in fact have been based on inaccurate information. At least Hinata wasn't acting spiteful towards her, regardless of claiming to hate the pinkette; she didn't think she'd have been able to tolerate that. Academy jealousy aside, Sakura was finding she actually liked the quiet girl, and would rather stay on her good side.

"I don't care what excuse he uses, as long as he shows up." The girls blinked at Naruto, and then smiled. "If he's late, he's late. We can kick his ass later. I've already got a prank thought up!" A broad, foxy grin spread over his features and soon to the others, as they imagined what sort of torment Naruto had devised for their sensei this time. At least he wasn't slacking off in their training. Each day brought with it a challenge, and on the very first day of training Kakashi had actually shown them what he called a vital ninja skill, especially for Konoha ninja: tree-walking. They were still working on mastering it, of course; all the same not a single one of them doubted their teacher's intentions. That first night had shown they could work together.

Now, though, they had to improve beyond the raw clay of fresh genin. On the surface each of them understood: the D-ranks were things that needed to be done, and brought revenue to the new shinobi, and thus the village, even though most of them were requested and assigned from within Konoha. They served not only as a way of earning money, but also as a means of learning how to work together. It didn't mean that Naruto particularly _enjoyed_ doing them, but it made sense. And he did have two pretty young ladies to help him, so it wasn't all bad. Now all he had to do was tell them about his little secrets. He'd opened his mouth to speak when Hinata beat him to the punch.

"Naruto, would you cut that out?" Glaring at him slightly, Sakura blew a sigh between her lips in feigned annoyance. The boy was amusing himself by transforming into different shapes, emulating various people, and doing a pretty good job of it, actually. Then she saw his eyes light up, and immediately grabbed his shoulders, shaking him violently. "No. Whatever you're thinking of, no!" Hinata stared at them, first in confusion, then in mirth as Naruto first generated a shadow clone, and then henged into their teacher. Her eyes widened slightly as she saw his shadow lengthen as well; normally that didn't happen, no matter how good the henge was. Whatever the cause, it only further cemented the idea that Naruto was special.

"What do you say, Sakura-chan, Hinata-chan?" 'Kakashi' asked them. "Should we head to the tower and get ourselves a nice, easy mission so we can take the rest of the day off?"

"Damn, even the voice is spot on. How do you do that, Naruto?" She understood that he watched people now; what she was just now learning that apparently it extended to being able to copy mannerisms. It made Sakura wonder if he was secretly getting training from a Yamanaka, or maybe a Hyuuga.

The disguised genin smiled behind the mask, and patted Sakura on the head. It unnerved her; she'd been expecting to feel his naked palm (and asked herself why she'd let him touch her like that), and instead had felt Kakashi's glove. "That is by far the most realistic transformation I've seen. Your hand felt just like sensei's!"

"Sure, why shouldn't it? It _is _a transformation, after all." The two kunoichi stood agape, floored by Naruto's logic, or lack thereof. Did he seriously, honestly believe that henge was supposed to make you physically change? And then he'd pulled it off? But then that meant…

"You mean you're really a girl when you use _that_ jutsu?" Hinata exclaimed. Naruto—both of them—rubbed his head sheepishly, and the clone grinned. "But…but…that doesn't make any sense…" The Hyuuga girl's face fell as she realized she was insulting Naruto, and promptly hung her head in shame, poking her fingers together. "I mean…" Naruto dropped the transformation, oddly enough using the same hand-sign he'd used to change in the first place, and then placed his hand on Hinata's chin to lift her eyes to his own. The action left her blushing more profusely than normal, and Naruto had to fight one of his own.

"Just because someone says it's impossible doesn't mean it can't be done. I mean look at Miyuki. She's only got one arm and she's still a pretty kick-ass ninja. They said that it would end her career and do you know what? She's trying out for jounin next month. So just because someone says there's only one way to do something, it doesn't mean they're right.

"Besides," he added, grinning that foxy smile that indicated he was about to say something either very smart or very stupid, "if it doesn't change you, why would they call it transformation?"

"Man, I'm glad we got this talk out of the way early," Sakura grumbled, poking Naruto's clone in the forehead lightly. "At least we've confirmed that our teammate is crazy."

"What does that say for you, then?" Three pairs of angry eyes settled on Kakashi, not a shock from Naruto or Sakura, unexpected but tolerable from Hinata. He prayed she never learned how to put any real emotion into that glare he was getting, because it had the potential to be a devastating weapon. "We're shinobi, though; being a little crazy helps." Each of them were focused entirely on his face, and so missed the sequence of hand signs before a flash of pale light sent them all into unconsciousness.

_That was pathetically easy. I'm going to have to train them in genjutsu resistance._ Taking the scroll in arm, Kakashi handed it to a bear-masked ANBU. "Try not to be too hard on them, Kuma-chan."

Behind the mask, Anko smiled. If they could survive the thirty days of hell she planned to put them through, she'd make sure to have Kakashi give them some real training. If they survived. Of course the Haruno girl's parents might be upset if she died, but they could always have another. Kakashi wanted to turn them into infiltrators; that was all well and good, but to do that, they had to prove they were capable of operating for extended periods without orders or regular contact from friendlies. And what better way to do so than on a deserted island being stalked day and night? Hopefully Bear wouldn't get back from his trip early, and hopefully nobody would notice his mask was missing.

Honestly, didn't anyone lock their cabinets anymore?

* * *

><p>The first thing Sakura noticed was that the sounds of Konoha were missing. The second thing she noticed was that she lay on a beach, and the third thing that the girl noticed was the tide was coming in. Regaining her senses, jade eyes filled with panic, she scampered away from the surf moments before a rather large wave that would have sucked her under crashed onto the shore. Taking a moment to catch her breath, Sakura tried to recall what she'd been doing before, and a moment to take in her surroundings. White sand, blue water, trees behind her and what she thought was the peak of a mountain along with humid air being blown on a southerly wind. That narrowed it down to about half the eastern shore of Fire Country and most of the islands between there and Kiri.<p>

If she were on the coast, heading west would get her to a road, eventually; there were several that cut diagonally across the country, all headed for Konoha. If this were an island, however, going deeper into it would just get her lost, and without knowing exactly where she was meant Sakura's best bet was to stay put. And she was all for that plan, until her stomach growled impatiently at her.

_Okay, food first, and then find out where the hell I am. And then to determine if I'm alone._ Part of her considered the possibility that she was actually outside known territory, a thought which wasn't the least bit pleasant; on the other hand she could easily be just a few miles from civilization and she'd never know it if she didn't take some risks.

They hadn't covered situations like this in survival training. It all assumed that you got separated from your squad, or got disoriented. Not once did any of the teachers ever address the possibility that your teacher would knock you out with a genjutsu and leave you stranded. Acting on _that_ particular tangent, Sakura brought her hands into a seal, focused her chakra, and _pushed_. She looked around as nothing changed.

_Great. Either it's not an illusion or it's too powerful for me to break. Still, there could be worse torments to endure than loneliness._ Getting to her feet, Sakura brushed sand from her hands and body, wincing at the heat bleeding through her soles. Whoever had brought her here had gotten rid of her sandals, and most of her ninja gear as well. She counted exactly one kunai and three spools of wire, and none of her rations or emergency supplies. _So it's a survival test, is it, sensei? Alright, I'll play your game._ Gathering what little had been left to her, Sakura steeled herself and headed away from the sound of waves.

* * *

><p>There was something eerily familiar about this place, Naruto concluded, though what it was he couldn't quite say. It wasn't that he'd woken up high in a tree that bothered him, or the lack of his ninja gear—that stuff had been cheap anyway and not all that useful—nor even his missing shirt and shoes. What bothered him was that his <em>necklace was missing<em>, and he never took the damn thing off, even to shower. Its weight was gone from his throat and therefore he felt off-balance, and even angry. Not that the current situation was helping his mood, but then, he'd been in tight spots before and come out okay.

_What the hell is Kakashi-teme playing at, dumping me and maybe us in the middle of nowhere? Is he trying to get us killed? It wouldn't surprise me, seeing as how he already did that once before._ Naruto's internal ramblings accompanied the journey down to the forest floor, the cool, loamy soil soaking in between his toes and making him giggle a little bit with every step. There weren't any leaves coating the ground and the air was hot, so either it was still summer, or he'd been spirited away to a tropical island.

_This is good material for the next book, _he thought to himself as his eyes wandered aimlessly. His feet seemed to know where they were going, and Naruto trusted them to keep him out of trouble. Reaching up to a branch as he passed underneath it, fingers snapped off a few leaves and pressed them into his mouth. They tasted bland, but were full of moisture and chewing them would keep him from getting too thirsty while he explored. At least he was still in Fire Country, Naruto surmised, though if the tree he'd just taken from were any indication he was definitely not on the mainland. That particular variety had to be imported and didn't grow very well in the drier temperate zone surrounding Konoha. The ones he had seen were always planted near water sources to keep them from dying.

_And people think I don't pay attention. I mean seriously, what sort of ninja thinks about his knife before he throws it? You either know where you want it to go or you keep it in your goddamn pouch._ Briefly he wondered if Hinata were somehow in the same area—she'd looked pretty annoyed at him if the redness in her face was any indication, and he wondered if he'd fucked up somehow. Maybe he could teach her his version of the henge as an apology.

A twig snapped behind and to the right and Naruto broke out into a run. Maybe once he had shelter. Apologies were no good if he got eaten, after all.

* * *

><p>Pain throbbed in her head; Hyuuga eyes, while they could overcome most genjutsu, were extremely susceptible to bright lights, and not totally infallible. Sitting up, Hinata shivered against a sudden chill, the breeze cutting through her more cleanly than any knife ever would. The vista spread before her was one that if she were in better spirits and better health would have been breathtaking; as it was the view of ocean for miles beyond a stretch of green and strips of white and blue cemented the idea that for once in her life she was well and truly fucked.<p>

Father would scold her if he ever heard of her speaking in such terms; fortunately thoughts were private and Hiashi was dozens if not hundreds of miles out of reach. Maybe the others, too, but she tried not to think about that. She was tired and sore, suggesting that she hadn't been asleep for the entire journey up onto the mountain, and judging from her chipped nails she'd climbed herself, at least partway. The knot at the base of her skull suggested that someone had knocked Hinata out again after she'd crested the summit; brief flashes of a bear mask intruded onto her thoughts and she frowned. Her favorite cousin was in ANBU and had said Bear was on vacation. So either he'd gotten back early or someone was 'borrowing' his mask.

First she had to get off the mountaintop and find shelter. Tropical though the breeze may be, this high up the air was thinner and therefore cooler, and if she was going to stay up on the crags then it was a fair bet the nights would get cold. Hinata was definitely not dressed for the cold if her missing jacket, shoes and gear were any indication. For a moment she was struck with the absurdity of it all. Their missions so far had been D-rank, nothing requiring even half of their academy skills, and yet they still carried weapons. Granted, shinobi were expected to fight at a moment's notice, but even then, the only time they really got used was during training.

Shaking her head to clear away distractions, Hinata began searching for a way down. If there weren't any clear pathways, well, she could always jump. Not that it was the best idea she'd ever had, it was better than staying there and starving.

* * *

><p>Anko watched them waking up, one by one; she had a shadow clone on each of the girls, her original self staying attached to Naruto. She knew she didn't have to coddle him as much, though was aware, too, that she'd have to avoid being seen. Years of run-ins with irate villagers and shinobi who didn't know when to leave well enough alone had taught him how to read people, and he'd know she wasn't Bear the moment he saw her. It was surprising, actually, the amount he knew about survival, proving that he paid more attention than people thought to things that were actually useful. Sure, his Academy reports may have indicated he had no patience at all for things such as history or economics, but the boy was still smarter than people let on.<p>

And so cute, too! She had to suppress a squeal at how manly he looked with his shirt off, chewing on a rolled-up leaf that stuck out of his mouth like a cigarette; if he was making her blush with dirty ideas now, he was going to destroy the female population of Konoha when he got older. As nice as it would be to play with him, she had already promised herself to another. Briefly, Anko fidgeted with the ring making its presence known thanks to the tropical heat, a smile twitching her lips beneath the ANBU mask. He had promised her, after all, that if his team managed to pass that he'd ask for her. It hadn't taken much thought before she'd said yes.

Those one night stands that kept pining after her were going to be so disappointed. Too bad for them; they needed to learn that you needed to be more than a good lay for the relationship to last. Poor Kakashi was going to be upset, since they had once wanted to marry and raise Naruto together; that time had passed. She still cared for him deeply, and was still willing to help him with anything regarding the boy they'd sworn each other to watch over; her lust for him had cooled, though, and then that other man had caught her on the way down. Keeping their relationship secret had been hard at first, and then as it had progressed beyond simple friendship to something deeper, more meaningful, Anko found herself falling for the teacher and hard.

Like any good teacher, he knew when to compromise, and when to draw the line. At least he'd relented on the name issue. There was no way in hell she was going to be Umino Anko.

Putting thoughts of her relationship aside, she watched him walking, his movements easy and sure. Unfortunately, she didn't see the twig until she'd already broken it quite noisily, and she uttered a particularly vile swear as her target broke out into a run. Hopefully he thought it was just a native animal, and not someone that could beat him twelve ways from Tuesday. Pouring energy into her legs, Anko took to the trees to keep him in sight. She patted her pouch to ensure it was still closed, the Shodaime's necklace still secure—it was still a mystery how he got his hands on it, when by all accounts it had been in Lady Tsunade's possession last anyone had seen it, and she knew that differences in rank and skill notwithstanding Naruto would kill her if she lost it and he found out.

Amusement flickered over her features as he tripped during his headlong flight and fell face-first into a muddy pond; Kakashi may have taught them tree-walking but it seemed he had yet to warn them about tunnel vision or, worse for ninja, not paying attention to their surroundings. It didn't take him long to right himself, brushing the clinging muck away from his eyes and mouth; Naruto left what was stuck to his torso alone, thankful for the cooling effect it gave. It wouldn't stay forever, of course, just until it dried out, but having it on his body seemed to have calmed the boy down and forced him to think rationally again. Steadying herself on a high bough, Anko watched him run through hand seals in a sequence she'd never seen before, and then utter the name of a jutsu.

"Soushin Rensa: Search!" She felt rather than saw a wave pass by, setting her nerves to tingling. It had evidently traveled quite a ways, as moments later the bunshin she had watching Hinata vanished, followed shortly after that by the one keeping an eye on Sakura. If it was an offensive technique it was a very good one; such a display would easily disperse any genjutsu, hiding technique, or bunshin that enemies had in place. And then it hit her. He'd said "search". This wasn't an attack, it was a sensor! Lost in thought, she couldn't stop him from making another set of seals.

"Soushin Rensa: Link!" Again she felt something, as if a weight had settled on her shoulders—not overbearing, and hardly noticeable for how comforting it was, and Anko swore that for the briefest of moments she saw a thread of yellow chakra connecting her to Naruto. Pulling a kunai out of her pouch, the jounin readied herself to stop him, but the third set of seals was the fastest and shortest by far.

"Soushin Rensa: Call!" There was a tugging at her mind, an insistent desire to move towards him that quickly abated as, apparently, this last technique worked on basis of proximity and line of sight. She was well-hidden in the canopy and still his eyes zeroed in on her, and in that moment Anko realized the true potency of what she'd just witnessed. Some way or another, her favorite brat had encountered a technique that had at least three stages, maybe more, enabling him to search a given area, then connect to people and call them to his location.

Having no idea what sort of parameters it operated on or what its range was, it still classified itself in her mind as a mid to high A-Rank jutsu, if not low S-Rank. If it had more stages than what he'd just inadvertently demonstrated to her, she had been present for the birth of the most formidable ninja Konoha had ever produced.

* * *

><p>It was commonly believed that you needed hands to perform jutsu. The Kyuubi, being made of pure chakra, thought that belief was utterly retarded. With a wave of his tail he could summon storms, create winds, flames and water, lightning and thunder, earthquakes and avalanches; in the time he'd spent raging against his human hosts, however, Kyuubi had learned another lesson altogether, that of subtlety. Let the other bijuu indulge in practices that drove their hosts insane or rendered them targets, let them rely on flashy displays of power; he was going to take a different route altogether.<p>

Perhaps some part of him admitted to a sort of grudging respect for his host, and to the Uzumaki clan in general. Three times he had been sealed and three times the indomitable will of an Uzumaki had held him at bay, first that bitch Mito who refused to even acknowledge his presence inside her, followed by the wild and untamed Kushina who despite chaining him down at least _talked_ to him, and now into the chaotic Naruto, who actually _listened_. Not that he considered the boy malleable, but he had an eminent understanding of the sort of things a bijuu was capable of, and a desire to make it work for him and the people he cared about.

As Naruto made the signs for the bloodline limit Kyuubi had told him about, the fox grinned savagely. A slight expression of his chakra at the link phase caused extra siphons to appear beyond the gate keeping him bound. Kushina had possessed the ability to generate the chains spontaneously, without any protracted effort; Naruto had inherited it as well, though weakened by the Namikaze blood running through his veins. Kushina, though, had never tried to expand her power the way Naruto was, at Kyuubi's insistence, and though he had only been practicing it for a few weeks the boy's progress was significant.

Visualizing a sequence of hand signs, Kyuubi punctuated it with a mental evocation.

_**Soushin Rensa: Minor Osmosis.**_ Immediately the drain became tangible, his undiluted power flowing down the links that Naruto had generated between himself and the three women. It was less than he gave to the boy on a daily basis, but by necessity—they did not have his overdeveloped chakra coils to have the strain, nor the Yondaime's seal to purify the chakra as it entered into their bodies. He had to take it slow for now, or they would risk chakra poisoning. It would have the side effect of accelerating their growth the way Naruto's was, in terms of not only body but also chakra capacity and reserves; with any luck, however, it would happen slow enough that their control would adjust automatically. He needed them able to fight alongside the brat.

Along with the chakra, he was giving them pieces of his soul, shards of his knowledge and experience, in essence creating copies of himself that while initially identical would be fully independent. Their orders were clear enough, the foremost of which was _lay low and don't cause trouble._

_**I am sorry we could not continue our talks, Kushina. Rest assured, that bastard Madara will roast in his own skin for his betrayals.**_ Kyuubi did not consider himself a humanitarian, nor any sort of benevolent entity. One thing he would not tolerate, however, was harm against people he respected; traitors were even worse. Keeping Naruto alive was the least he could do to repay Kushina, as she had died by his claw. Madara would get his just reward in due time as well, for being the one to instigate his slaying of her.

And teaching Naruto how to control the other bijuu was just the icing on the cake. It would probably take years; he didn't care. As long as Naruto lived he would know the name Uchiha as an enemy, and Naruto stood to live for a long time indeed.

* * *

><p>Sakura had been in the middle of climbing a tree (using the branches, fortunately) when the wave hit her. She stiffened as it sent tingles up her spine and into her brain, and for a moment she wondered if she'd been attacked. Then something tugged at her very soul, moments before the overwhelming desire to move in a particular direction overtook her.<p>

Inner Sakura was bewildered, looking at the chain that had appeared and wrapped itself around Sakura's spirit; it refused to budge and while it didn't appear to be causing any harm, the chain denied every effort against it, and more specifically was pulling Sakura's soul in a particular direction. From the looks of it, the chain wasn't designed to pull her spirit out by any means, but rather to command it. No matter what this power was or who had triggered it, the user was getting their ass beat as soon as she got to him.

Thus far Sakura had been unable to locate the hallmarks of habitation, nor even the subtle cues of hunters. If she was indeed on an island with her team and there were no other people around that left only two, maybe three possibilities. Either Naruto or Hinata had some heretofore unrecorded ability, or Kakashi was present on the island and looking for them. The urge to head to the northwest was irritatingly strong, and the longer she tried to fight it, the more insistent it became. She hoped it was someone friendly, because for an enemy to have a technique this powerful could only prove disastrous. Hanging her head in resignation, Sakura took a moment to collect herself, and then began to sprint.

If it had been Naruto like she was suspecting, he was in for a rude wake-up call.

* * *

><p>This chakra felt familiar. The golden thread leading down and away from the mountain, to the south and slightly east, had a very distinct pressure to it. Hinata's eyes saw it, of course, stretching away from her body, so thin that if it were an ordinary thread she might fear breaking it; given its nature, though, she supposed such thoughts were silly. That wave had nudged her senses somehow, and she responded eagerly. The slight reddish hue woven into the gold didn't bother her, as when it had started Hinata had been invigorated, warmed from within by some strange power she didn't understand. It had helped her, though; more than once her chakra-enhanced grip had faltered, and would have failed entirely if not for this extra energy feeding into her. Her eyes kept activating on their own, as if to ensure that power was still there, helping her on her descent, and only when her feet were firmly on the ground did she finally manage to keep her Byakugan from showing itself.<p>

Oddly enough, the chakra thread extended in the same direction as she felt compelled to move towards, that call from earlier still lingering in her mind. She heeded it, of course, trusting it and the link it provided; the Hyuuga heiress saw no reason not to, as it meant companionship, possibly shelter, and improved chances for survival. Waking up on an island where nobody lived had firmly entrenched the idea that they were on some sort of extended exercise in her mind. Somehow, Hinata knew that Sakura and Naruto were with her on the island, and until they could manage to get back to Konoha under their own power or were rescued, they would have to rely on each other. There would be no one else.

It could take months, maybe even years. All of that time, alone with Naruto…okay, Sakura would be there, too, and he liked the rose-haired girl, but Hinata didn't mind sharing. As long as Sakura understood that Hinata had first dibs, anyway.

Giggling at her own lewd fantasy, pearl-hued eyes picked out a path into the forest and she began following it.

* * *

><p>We take a short recess from the now-nameless island to peek in on Teams Eight and Ten, for their development is important to this story as well. It is best, perhaps, to focus on Team Eight first, as in another life they had the second-worst jounin teacher of all time; this, however, is a world where teachers are a little more observant, and willing to put forth a lot more effort, and all because Anko Mitarashi cared enough about someone to beat some sense into him.<p>

At the moment Team Eight had just completed that most hated of D-Rank missions, that being the capture and return of the cat Tora to his owner, and were retiring to Training Ground 11 to indulge in something that Kurenai liked to call 'Image Training'. Being well-versed in genjutsu, the young jounin had worked out a way for her team to get some practice in without expending any actual effort or enduring any harm: by placing them under a shared illusion. Of course she focused on their physical abilities often enough, and tomorrow they would probably repeat the exercise under 'live fire' conditions; they needed to prove to her that the tactics they used while in the dream world could function in the real world as well.

There was an added benefit to the image training, in Kurenai's mind. She had seen the possibility for her team to become capture and interrogation specialists, and inside an imaginary world, Kurenai could give her students an endless supply of victims to practice 'hard' techniques on—with some assistance from Ino's father, of course. The previous Ino-Shika-Cho trio had been informed of her intentions and had all gladly offered their assistance whenever possible; Chouza in particular found the idea of his son learning genjutsu to be a novel addition to his formidable taijutsu abilities, which made him an ideal interceptor.

Needless to say Shikamaru was a little jealous, of course, seeing as he was the brains of the operation; he had begun seeing a trend where Chouji would set up an illusion, and while the target wasted time breaking out of it, he or she would find herself held by the Shadow Bind, and then subdued by the Mind Switch (a technique that Ino was slowly but surely altering so she didn't have to send her _whole_ mind into her target), ending with their victim voluntarily tying himself up.

At least, that's how it worked in theory. The three of them were learning, however, that inside Kurenai's genjutsu one or all of their clan-specific techniques may prove less than useful, or backfire or miss, and force them to rely on more traditional methods of capture; it was these that Kurenai wanted them to learn, so as to not limit them in what they were capable of pulling off.

Ino had at one point suggested that they learn from Naruto, of all people, given how often he'd set up and executed pranks without being discovered in the process. That idea had been shot down rather briskly, on the reasoning that what Naruto does works for Naruto, and they had to learn what worked for them, to not only find out their specific ability in regards to trap-making, but also get experience in setting snares and making them easy to get into while hard to get out of.

Shikamaru, naturally, thought it was all too troublesome. Kurenai was making him learn anyway, on threat of being the test subject for Ino's 'soft' interrogation skills. The less he saw of his teammate naked, the better.

Team Ten, on the other hand, was not meshing so nicely with the role their teacher wanted…

"Hey! Watch the fireball, Sparky!" Kiba lunged to the side as another katon jutsu flew from Sasuke's lips, singeing the ruff on his jacket as he barely cleared the area of effect. "You trying to get me killed or is your aim really that bad?" This was the third time in as many minutes that the Uchiha had come close to barbecuing him, and he was not happy in the slightest. It was supposed to be a friendly spar, for crying out loud! The meaning of 'restraint' was apparently lost on the black-clad genin standing opposite him, a dark smirk on his face.

"Sorry, I don't see the point in wasting my time on a loser like you, so it's in my best interests to finish the fight quickly." Spluttering, Kiba looked to Shino for help, prompting the other boy to adjust his sunglasses and clear his throat.

"Your attitude sucks, Sasuke. It's in your best interests to learn how to not stand out like a searchlight in the middle of a blackout. In other words, do that again and I'll drain you dry." He noted, out of the corner of his vision, that their sensei was observing the whole situation, yet not intervening. Obviously, he wanted the group to work out their problems without his help, and his opinion of the results of their efforts thus far was not favorable.

Stepping in close, Shino did something highly uncharacteristic of the politely reserved Aburame clan: he got up in Sasuke's face, and growled _slightly_. That little display of irritation halted Sasuke's words in his throat, and satisfied that he would not be interrupted, the kikai-nin continued with his evaluation.

"While you have an impressively destructive array of fire techniques, they are ultimately detrimental to Asuma-sensei's desired methods. You were put on this team for your Sharingan abilities. If and when you activate them, your clan bloodline's memory-enhancing properties will be useful for recording information which can then be relayed back to commanders. Throwing out a fire technique does not help you remain hidden. I would advise you to learn something less…distinctive. Neither I, nor Kiba, and certainly not sensei, care about your motivations.

"If I see you targeting your teammate or myself with such a destructive jutsu during sparring again, I will carry out my threat. Give it some thought." Bristling from the verbal dressing-down, Sasuke took a moment to be…interested (he would never use the term amazed or awed in reference to anyone that wasn't an Uchiha) in the boy's behavior. He had said more in that moment than he had in the past week, and frankly it bothered him that a representative from a _lesser_ clan had such a low opinion of him. But of course he would; he didn't understand the need to get stronger, the person he had to kill. He couldn't stay weak like the rest of them.

And then Kiba's fist caught him on the side of the head, sending him sprawling.

"Surprise, dumbass! Sensei didn't call a halt to the match! Shino's right, by the way," Kiba continued, sticking out a hand to help Sasuke to his feet, frowning when the other didn't accept it. "Fine, get yourself killed. Forget that you have two teammates and a teacher to help you. Ignore the fact that running off alone is how stupid little genin like us get in over our heads. You told sensei you need to get stronger, well that's fine." Grinning, Inuzuka fangs bared, and feral glee in his eyes, Kiba shifted into a ready stance. Time to prove that Uchiha wrong about his supposed superiority.

"But you're going to do it the right way, and take it slow. There are no shortcuts. That's what my mom says anyway. Now are you going to cooperate or do I have to beat some sense into you?" Sneering, Sasuke charged, and the boys traded blows for a few short, intense seconds before Sasuke slipped inside his opponent's guard and doubled him over with a short punch to the kidney; just as he was about to chain into a cross kick to Kiba's head, however, he was shoved from behind, pushing him towards the Inuzuka's shoulders where he found himself lifted into a suplex and slammed onto the grass.

Dazed, his eyes spotted a second Kiba, which dispersed in a cloud of smoke to reveal his ninken.

"Cheater," he spat. Kiba only smiled and tapped the metal of his hitai-ite.

"Correction: ninja. More importantly, _Leaf_ ninja, and you should know something about us: we never fight alone." From his tone it was clear that Sasuke was being included in that statement. This time he did accept the hand up, and gestured a request to Shino. The bug user joined him at his side while Akamaru henged back into human shape; on some unseen signal the four erupted into a flurry of motion again.

Asuma sighed inwardly as he watched them go at it with a fervor that Gai would approve of. _These boys are going to give me gray hairs. I am not ready for gray hairs._

* * *

><p>The forest was darkening rapidly, even though the sky showed that there was still light overhead. Naruto had paused in a clearing that looked like a good spot to set up a shelter, evaluating it for defensibility and such things. Not that he expected to be attacked, but Miyuki liked to tell him stories, horrible tales really, of pirates that ran between the coasts of Fire and Stone and the islands of Water, using the islands that dotted the Eastern Sea as bases. His main problem was that he didn't have any tools to cut wood with and therefore no way to build an encampment; the Academy textbooks somehow failed to cover real-world situations like this one and even if pirates failed to show up, Naruto still wanted to have some sort of defense against wild animals and the like.<p>

Fortunately enough, the clearing was still illuminated, the waist-high grass tickling against his stomach as he waded through it, bathed in the soft evening glow. He estimated another hour at least of light, which hopefully would be enough time to gather some branches, sharpen some into stakes and form a perimeter. For a brief moment, Naruto wished he had some fire techniques to use, as hazardous as they would be; Kakashi had tested them far earlier than most teachers and had announced, with unusual pride, that Naruto's affinity was wind, compared to Hinata's water and Sakura's earth. The enigmatic jounin hadn't taught them any elemental techniques just yet, saying that he wanted them to get comfortable with the idea of affinities first. Naruto didn't mind it too much, as there would be plenty of time for that later. Still…

Between tree walking and cutting leaves, Naruto felt like he wasn't actually learning anything. Then again, he figured that if he really needed to, he could try cutting stalks instead, and he resolved to give it a try. Gathering chakra to his palms, the youth envisioned a scythe sweeping through the grass, sweeping his hands out to his sides from where he held them in front of his chest. He was rewarded with a gust of wind that rustled the stems, but none of them fell. Discouraged, he was about to try again when a voice broke him out of his concentration.

"Naruto-kun!" The young man named by the shout looks to the source, catching a glimpse of indigo hair and lavender eyes before he is tackled to the grass by the one who cried out to him.

"It's good to see you, too, Hinata," he says with a laugh. Of course it would be her. Sakura never uses the honorific with him.

"You called me and here I am. How?" His eyes sparkle mirthfully, wet with tears of happiness that he didn't know were there. He'd gotten used to not being alone, and his friends' absence had stung him deeper than he'd realized. For her own part, Hinata was wondering if he'd somehow used that other power inside him, the dark red that lurked behind his hara.

"Not yet, Hinata; let's wait for Sakura to get here. There's something I need to tell you both. In the meantime would you like to help me build a shelter?" He showed her the tools that he'd been left with; the kunai would be useful, as would the wire, though they'd have to use it sparingly as there wasn't exactly a way to get more. Nodding, Hinata blushed as she figured out that she was straddling the boy that she had a crush on, and that for whatever reason his shirt was missing.

Blushing furiously, she backpedaled off of him, flattening the grass underneath as she fell onto her back in the middle of stammering out an apology; Naruto just looked confused, leaning over her face and poking her crimson cheeks with his fingers before pinching them and pulling.

"What are you doing, Naruto-kun?" she managed to whine out between squeaks, as the fingers pulled harder.

"Telling you to stop apologizing. You didn't do anything wrong. Or did you think I'd be angry from having a cute girl sitting on me while I showed her my equipment?" Waggling his eyebrows at the double-entendre, Naruto grinned at her, and then frowned when she fainted dead away. Sighing softly, he hooked his hands under Hinata's armpits, dragging her to the edge of the clearing and propping her up against a tree.

"Nope, still shy as a kitten."

"What did you do to Hinata this time, bozo?" Sakura stood several feet away, tapping her foot impatiently, trying to ignore how good Naruto looked with the waning sunlight casting his body in bronze, looking down at the still-blushing girl as she slowly came around. At least he'd kept his hands to himself. Kiba certainly wouldn't have and she doubted Shikamaru would've passed on the opportunity to feel her up, either. That was neither here nor there, though.

"Told a little joke, that's all," Naruto said sheepishly. "I think I overdid it. At least she fainted on the grass and not up in a tree. Hey! Since you're here, would you mind waking her up? I'm gonna go gather some stuff."

"What sort of stuff?"

"Branches and shit, leaves, twigs, rocks, you know, stuff. Unless you want to sleep under the stars, anyway." His announcement that he needed to make was momentarily forgotten as he waited for Sakura's answer, utterly oblivious to his prior solemnity.

"Oh. Okay." Sakura crouched down next to Hinata and gently gripped her shoulders, shaking the girl side to side. As she worked on rousing her friend, Naruto bounded out into the forest again, unaware of the eyes that watched him go. The compulsion Sakura had felt vanished when she'd chanced upon Naruto, and for a moment she wondered if he'd somehow been the cause of it. He'd been full of surprises, actually; in the short time that they'd been working together he'd shown more skills than she'd given him credit for and was forced to admit that when he wanted to, Naruto could be quite thoughtful, on top of the fact that he was never intentionally mean.

That hadn't been enough time to really change her opinion of him, however. In Sakura's mind, Naruto was still a loudmouthed idiot, an incorrigible boor that had more guts than common sense and despite all he'd shown so far, she still had a rather severe dislike for him. It hadn't hurt their teamwork at any rate, and he'd toned down the date requests—something about not feeling right going out with someone that you had to work with—but all that aside, Naruto just didn't sit right with her, not to mention that all of the older generation had an apparent dislike for him as well.

Her thoughts were interrupted as Naruto and twenty of his clones came back, carrying large bundles of branches, fronds and other such materials. Pulling out his sole kunai, he spawned another set of five clones, and they set to work cutting grass in a broad circle. The strands could be woven into rope, and used to tie things together; as his clones sorted out the materials and made the camp ready, the original sat next to his two teammates, offering a soft smile to Hinata when she blushed again under his scrutiny. Then his face hardened and he took a deep breath.

"I was hoping to wait a few years to tell you this, like when I was on my death bed or something, but you're going to find out sooner or later and you might as well hear it from my own lips before anyone else blabs the secret to you."

"What are you talking about, Naruto-kun?"

"Sealed inside me is the Kyuubi no Yoko. I have been holding him prisoner since the day I was born."

This time it was Sakura's turn to faint.

* * *

><p><em>Author's notes: No, nobody besides Naruto is getting whisker marks. His mother didn't have them and his great-grandmother didn't have them, so I'm inclined to believe that they're the result of his being the offspring of a jinchuuriki and not from being a jinchuuriki himself. As Kishimoto has so helpfully shown us in recent chapters, each jinchuuriki, if they have any markings at all, have markings unique to them. Hachibi's previous host, for example.<em>

_Besides, your eyes changing shape and markings appearing on your cheeks would spoil the surprise of finding out a legendary monster has been building mind__**babies**__ inside you._

_Also, before anyone whines that he's mastered the Soushin Rensa pretty quickly, remember that this is Naruto we're talking about. He eats jutsu for breakfast, plus he's been getting help from his tenant. More importantly, the kekkei genkai's abilities are undocumented and therefore potentially incomplete—if it can even be counted as a real bloodline—he's so far only demonstrated three techniques related to it, which is a hell of a lot less than the Sharingan is known to have. I mean seriously, that particular dojutsu is by far the most broken and overpowered of every one shown in the series so far._

_Please direct all questions and comments to the Enforcer Drone sitting in the next seat over._


	3. Can you keep a secret?

For a moment, Sakura stared at Naruto in stunned disbelief, wondering if this was another one of his pranks. Then she caught the look of sincerity in his eyes and did the only sensible thing given the situation: she fainted. Oh, she was still dimly aware, of course, feeling the hands picking her up and laying her on something soft but unyielding, and then the gentle weight of what could only be leaves of some sort. As much as she tried, though, she simply couldn't move, and decided that if she was stuck in dreamland anyway she might as well sleep.

Words floated to her from the darkness as she processed the facts she knew about the loudmouth with the unhealthy fetish for orange, things such as 'hope she comes around soon' and 'tip her head this way or she'll choke'; that second comment brought with it the sensation of something cool sliding down her throat and she swallowed reflexively. Water, most likely. So that's why her mother was always telling her to stay away from him—not that it could be helped, given as they had the same classes, and now were on the same team to say nothing of how frequently he would ask her out (though thankfully that had ended once the team assignments had come).

"Hey. You and me need to have a little chat."

_Huh? Who's there?_

"You, stupid!" A tugging sensation grabbed hold of her consciousness and suddenly Sakura found herself standing inside the walls of a traditional manor, staring at an inverted-color reflection of herself bearing the word 'Truth' above her right eye. Contrary to Sakura's normal reflection, this one was fuller of figure, not as slender, and had definite tone to her arms that were currently holding a small red flame protectively. "I had to bring you in here to explain a few things and it's a good thing that I _can_ bring you in here at all. I'm not a Yamanaka, you know."

_What do you mean explain a few things? I just got the shock of my life! And more to the point…who are you and where are we?_ Sakura paused in her scrutiny of this other self to look around, walking over to one of the sliding doors and opening it. _Okay, that's creepy._ Opening the door showed her the scene she had just tried to leave.

"Sorry, princess, but until I'm done talking, I'm not letting you leave. Now, like I said, I'm you. The you that should have been, the part of you that you want to deny even exists and let me tell you, I don't appreciate that. I've spent the last four years locked up in here watching you make dumb decisions just to get with some ducky-haired idiot when you should have been focusing on your studies and your body to make it _stronger!_ Honestly, you really expected to thrive as a ninja when you keep skipping meals and not keeping in shape? No wonder Ino kept beating us. Me. God, this is confusing."

_Are you done with your little rant? I have to wake up and kill Naruto now._

"Kill him? What would you—oh, right, the Kyuubi thing. Nuh uh. Not happening, sweetheart."

_But he's a demon! He's been a wolf in sheep's clothing this whole time, luring us into a false sense of security so we'll ignore him until it's too late! He already knows too much!_

"Would you listen to yourself? God, you're stupid. I should have tried to bring you down here earlier, or maybe break out and lock you in here instead. But I'll settle for you not denying my existence, Pinky. And if you think for one second that I'm going to let you kill the Yondaime's son you're making a mistake. Honestly, if the Fourth thought for even one minute that the Kyuubi could take over his child's mind and twist him into some sort of monster he wouldn't have sealed it."

_What in the _world_ are you talking about? His name isn't Namikaze! There's no way that idiot is related to the hero of the village!_

"Why? Just because you say it's not possible doesn't make it so." 'Truth' sighed in exasperation, poofing a screen into existence, pulling it down to call out a memory. On the screen, Sakura saw that day a year ago when she'd skipped lunch and dinner and missed half her classes to hide out in the library doing research on clans, hoping to impress Sasuke with her knowledge of Uchiha family traditions. She watched as her younger self perused through the clan registry and where books and scrolls related to them were stored, and seeing the name Uzumaki as having its own section of shelves next to the Uchiha. At the time she'd brushed it off as mere coincidence, temporizing that it was probably just a single book stuffed in with another clan in the U area of the library. 'Truth' grinned at the dawning realization on Sakura's face.

"Yes, you get it now, don't you? Poor, sweet little Naruto, the one that everyone ignores and hates, is from a clan, just like your _precious_ and tragic Sasuke-kun." 'Truth' couldn't help the snide tone that crept into her voice at the mention of the Uchiha boy, rolling her eyes at the blush crawling onto her outer self's cheeks. "And not only that, but it's highly likely he's the son of a Hokage—but you're _not_ going to tell him anything about that, not yet. He probably doesn't know anything about his parents and that is by far the cruelest thing that's ever been done to him. Even more than all the times you've rejected his attempts at friendship; thank God that he has people like Miyuki-san and Iruka-sensei to keep him sane. Relatively speaking, of course, since everyone else would probably keep on ignoring him even if he went crazy. I have to remember to thank whoever gave him that new outfit because that much orange just screams—oh, very clever, Naruto, you really are smarter than you act."

_I still don't get it…_ Sakura whined at…well, herself. The 'Truth' didn't seem to care and just rolled her eyes again, petting the flickering flame which, oddly, let out a distinctly animalistic grunt of pleasure.

"If you'd eat more often you could think faster, kiddo. I'm surprised that you managed to be so good at retaining information considering how you starve yourself. It has to be some kind of miracle. Did you honestly think Sasuke—or anyone else for that matter—would want a kunoichi that couldn't keep up with him? I'm going to let you out, now, but I want you to do a few things for me."

_I'm listening. I'm not saying I'll _do_ them, but I'm listening anyway. This is all a little hard to take in and I need some time to figure it all out._

"Take all the time you need, I'm not going anywhere. First, this is an absolute must: don't tell Naruto _anything_ about being related to the Fourth. It won't do him any good right now. Second, try and be a little nicer to him. He'll appreciate that a lot. Third, start eating better, you'll be happier in the long run—and could you let me out every once in awhile? I don't like being cooped up in here watching you fuck things up. Oh, and try and steal a kiss from Hinata."

_Why on earth would I do that?_

"You'll figure it out." And with that, 'Truth' reached for a cord that Sakura hadn't seen while talking to her reflection and when the inverted-color girl gave it a yank, Sakura found herself being forcibly ejected from the room and back into consciousness. In all the time she'd been ranting at herself, she'd forgotten to be angry at Naruto for developing the power to command respect, which in retrospect he might have always had. Shrugging, she patted the flame in her hands before holding it up to her face. "What do you say, Sparky? Want to go play in the woods?"

Sparky yipped and 'Truth' laughed in agreement.

* * *

><p>To say that Hinata wasn't particularly fond of Sakura would be an understatement, but to be honest with herself she didn't hate the girl like she'd said, either. At worst it was a sort of indifference, and it was more because Sakura could be so <em>dense<em> concerning people that Hinata found herself in a rare position of actual anger. Still, in the three weeks or however long it had been that they'd been working together, she'd found herself warming up to the other female—not as readily as Naruto, of course, but it was hard not to like him. Sure, she was a little disappointed that the reality was a little different than her imagination, but not so much that the ideal was completely shattered.

He had also displayed a remarkable sense of propriety in asking Hinata to watch the other girl while he scouted around. The pair had caught some fish last night but they were going to need more than a few minnows to keep their strength up. Not that she felt like she needed it, not with that thread still connected to her, providing her with invigoration and a sense of empowerment, but even with his huge capacity Naruto still ate and Hinata noted that meant he was well aware of the dangers of chakra exhaustion. She'd checked it during the night and confirmed her suspicions that Naruto was somehow responsible for the thread, as it connected straight to him; she hadn't clued him in on the revelation just yet, though, preferring to let this warmth last for as long as possible. To be reassured like this was akin to intoxication, the dangers of which she knew well.

It was a little-known fact that in the Hyuuga clan there was a tradition of exposing its shinobi to the dangers of mind-altering substances at an early age. They had healers present to reverse the effects if need be and prevent addiction, but all the same, in between her family training sessions, Hinata was more or less required to succumb to the effects of her father's favorite rice wine and certain other drugs, less to turn her off from them and more to hammer home the necessity for moderation. The impression she got from the thread connecting her to Naruto was the same as when she'd had a couple of cups, or indulged in her favorite cigarettes (that particular tidbit was being kept secret from everyone), only without the hangover involved with excessive drinking. To put it simply, she liked it and hoped it never ended.

Unlike Sakura, she didn't have an inner mind to notice the energy being fed into her, and though she could turn the chakra-sensing abilities of her Byakugan inward, that was a thing Hyuuga rarely did, and besides, Hinata much preferred to stare at the brightness of others. Especially Naruto and his rich yellow-hued chakra, bright like the sun amidst the blue sky of those around him. She was so intent on her musing that she almost didn't register Sakura stirring from her sleep. Unfortunately for Sakura and her intentions to go back to sleep, Hinata's ninja senses were trained to the point that she still noticed the movement, and turned to throw a hug at the smaller woman.

"Oh, thank goodness, Sakura-kun! We were worried you weren't going to wake up!"

"How long was I out?" Numbly, Sakura returned the hug, stifling a yawn that threatened to dislocate her jaw if she let it out. The conversation with that other consciousness inside her head, one-sided as it was, had left her still a little groggy.

"Since yesterday evening," the other explained. "It's about midday now. Are you…you're not going to go crazy on Naruto, are you?" Sakura winced at that, hoping that Hinata didn't notice. In truth she _had_ been planning on giving him what-for; her taijutsu had always been better even if Naruto possessed more raw strength. The words of her 'Truth' came back to her, though, and finally, feebly, Sakura shook her head.

"I guess I was going to, but not now. Can you blame me? I was pretty scared hearing that he had it sealed inside him, thinking that maybe he was some sort of wolf in sheep's clothing, or fox I guess; that's pretty stupid of the smartest girl from our set, huh?" Grinning weakly, she tried to extract herself from Hinata's suddenly tighter grip, to no avail. "Don't worry, Hinata. I'm not dumb. After all, the Yondaime knew what he was doing, right?"

"Just so, Sakura; Naruto's father wasn't an idiot."

"What do you mean by 'Naruto's father'?" Letting go of Sakura, the heiress pressed her lips into a tight frown, and regarded the green-eyed girl carefully.

"Naruto's parentage is common knowledge to the older generation, I suspect, and if you look the resemblance is there." Hinata sighed heavily, looking away from Sakura. "Not that I have any proof of this, so it's probably just wishful thinking on my part, wanting him to have some ray of light in his life. I've asked my father and the other family members, but they either won't talk about it, or say they can't."

"That does sound odd. If it is true, though, do you think we should tell him?" Sakura held her breath, waiting on the answer, cringing as her stomach rumbled. Hopefully Naruto would be back with the food; she'd honestly prefer to be out helping but she didn't know a thing about wilderness survival.

"Not yet. If it is true that the Fourth was his father…my own says he had a lot of enemies that might want to take their revenge on Naruto. Oh…finally hungry, are you?"

"Are you kidding? I'm dying here. Should we go looking for him?"

Hinata shook her head. "He told us to stay here and work on the shelter. His clones got most of it constructed last night but Naruto was too worried about you for his copies to focus properly." She gestured at the shoddy workmanship of the lean-to, which looked as if it had been thrown together from a kit and rather badly at that. "Luckily it didn't rain last night. I don't think he meant to leave it in such poor condition, but…"

"Sorry to be a burden."

"You're not a burden, Sakura-chan." Naruto peeked into the shelter, holding up a pair of rabbits he'd managed to snare. "I'd have freaked out too if someone just went and told me they had a demon sealed inside their body." Both girls turned their attention on the shirtless youth, and the rabbits he'd caught; in that moment of distraction, Hinata's fingers reached for a pack of smokes that wasn't there and she cursed silently. The reassuring gesture thwarted, she settled for grabbing the cuffs of her pants instead.

"Who gets cooking duty?" Sakura said quietly. "I guess I could since you were attending to me all night; it wouldn't be any trouble. I'm feeling a lot better now, though I do have to wonder what other secrets you're hiding."

"No more than you or Hinata," was the solemn reply. "I learned pretty early on that everyone's got secrets. I didn't really learn about mine until about two or three years ago when the bozo pulled me inside my headspace to show me a bunch of breaks in my system." That brought the stares on in full force and Naruto shrank away from them slightly, dropping the rabbits into Sakura's lap so he could duck out of the shelter and lean against it from the outside. In a voice loud enough for them to hear, he continued without hesitation. "As it turns out my chakra network was pretty fucked up, and well I went around patching it up so it wasn't leaking anymore. It's sort of like what you hear about patients at the hospital, how some of them just give up and stop getting better, you know? Healing takes effort and if you don't want to get better then you aren't going to."

"Well that makes sense, I suppose." Staring down at the dead animals, Sakura pondered how she would handle having a demon locked inside her body instead of it being Naruto's burden. Everyone was taught that the Kyuubi had died, and now she knew that wasn't the truth at all. Had it been to protect Naruto? Or was it the villagers that were being protected? Everyone older than eighteen had likely known the truth and as a result for the last thirteen years Naruto had been getting the shit end of the stick. He didn't seem resentful, though. On the other hand, Sakura could recall plenty of times when she'd witnessed the normally vibrant teen acting rather sad and lonely. No wonder he acted up all the time if people were ignoring him as a matter of course. "Everyone has secrets, huh? So what, it's our job to find them out?"

"Can't say for sure, Sakura-chan. All I know is that we've been dropped in the middle of nowhere with no supervision and no idea what we're supposed to be doing out here, with no way of getting in touch with home. Feels almost like a mission. Ah, did Hinata fall asleep in there?" Sakura looked, and indeed saw the dark-haired girl curled up, her head resting on a mossy log that had been brought in to serve as a makeshift pillow.

"Yeah, she did. She wasn't up all night watching over me, was she?"

"She was. For all how she was mincing around you acting like she hated your guts I figured she would be the most worried when you passed out."

"I don't think I know what to make of her." Sakura sighed, peering out to where she knew Naruto would be standing. "So, it feels like a mission, huh? What's your take on the parameters?"

"Survive, and if we can, get stronger. I don't think it was an accident that Kakashi-sensei showed us our elemental affinities so soon after getting us; Ayame-chan said that her jounin instructor didn't teach them theirs until one of her squad made chuunin. And that took four years."

"Wait, the ramen girl was a kunoichi? And she quit to work at a ramen stand?"

"Don't know why exactly but that's the story. You wanna find out, ask her when we get back. Whenever that is. Out here, though, we can work on raw manipulation without worrying about trashing anybody's house or whatever. I don't pretend to know what's going on in sensei's head but if it helps us in the long term I'm all for it."

* * *

><p>Anko watched the three with a smile behind the bear mask, ignoring the sweat that was beginning to bead on her cheeks and brow. Maybe it would be better if she threw out the original plan to teach them correctly; after all, things you came up with in the middle of getting your brains screwed out weren't always the most sound. No matter how good the sex is, her teacher had always said, don't let it cloud your judgment. There's no such thing as friendly territory, she'd been told by the retired kunoichi. Once the bedroom door closes you might as well be in a battlefield.<p>

Right now they were going at it with the academy-basic taijutsu drills, attacking and counterattacking, none of them pulling any punches. Hinata apparently had some sort of healing salve that lessened pain and soothed injuries, and of course Naruto had a healing factor that bordered on immortality; as she watched them fight, Anko began to formulate a plan on how to teach them what they needed to know. While likely they would never see front-line combat, infiltrators still needed to be able to battle, especially if it was necessary for their escape, and these three would be no exception. The other problem as she saw it was trust. Though they would eventually have to separate and join different teams for different missions once they became chuunin or even jounin, the boy and two girls sparring in the field below were going to have to learn to trust not just each other but their handlers as well.

Naruto had the highest stamina of any genin she'd seen in twelve years, with an obvious source for that; he seemed to excel at running away, though, if ANBU reports and her own observations were correct. Contrast that to the Haruno girl currently working out her frustrations against the blond—she tired quickly but every one of her strikes was brutal, carrying unnatural force behind them. Get her in shape and Sakura would easily be their interceptor, the muscle if things went wrong.

Balanced between the two of them was Hinata, who though she had decent stamina was lacking in power, relying more on her Byakugan and family fighting style when pressured than on any real ability to knock someone out. On the other hand her range of vision was making it likely that she'd be slotted in as the team's overwatch, with Naruto doing the actual infiltration. Watching the aforementioned boy slip around to the side and deliver a sharp blow to Hinata's ribs made Anko wince appreciably. She was definitely going to have to break the girl of her reliance on her family's Jyuuken, the sooner the better. Briefly she wondered if she should go down there and interrupt their little soiree; best not to introduce herself as a threat, however, until they were aware of her presence and had been under her instruction for a week or two.

That was the other reality of being infiltrators. Trust could be compromised, and it was better for them to learn it from someone who wouldn't be trying to kill them than from someone who was.

(break)

"That could have gone better."

"Yes. But it could have gone worse. We could be dead."

"Almost would have been if you hadn't stepped in. They'll be looking for you now, though."

"I don't mind. They can't match me."

"Don't get arrogant; I didn't take you off the streets so you could strut like a peacock."

"Are you implying you don't like my plumage?"

"Hmm, I'm not saying that, but you should know by now how dangerous it is to stand out, especially as a ninja."

"Yes, I suppose you are correct."

"How long before we reach Koizuki Island?"

"At current speed, it will take us just under a week. Do you think the Daimyo will be upset that we borrowed his yacht?"

"Are you kidding me? He probably won't even realize it's gone. We'll take a few days to rest when we get there, and then head through the Sengoku Canal and make our way to Wave."

"We aren't going to walk, sir?"

"Too risky right now. With the recent coup attempt, Kiri will probably send out updated Bingo Book information to the other ninja villages, so we should avoid setting foot in any of the five nations. And besides, we have this nice boat."

"Very well. Is there anything you require?"

"Not right now. I'll take the helm for awhile; go below and get some rest."

"As you wish."

* * *

><p>Miyuki looked around to ensure that nobody was watching, and then knocked on the alley wall three times in one spot, two times in another, then three times again in a third, before finally pressing a brick set equidistantly between the two points. Obediently, a section of wall large enough to admit a person slid open and she slipped inside, using the five-second window to its full advantage. She'd learned that the hard way—when a secret passage opens, don't dawdle. At least it hadn't cost her an arm; that was a souvenir from the mission that had almost ended her shinobi career. Frowning, she paused inside the entryway to unseal a mechanical arm from a discreet tattoo on her neck and snap it into place with only a small hiss of pain. The genjutsu hiding the connector vanished as she flexed her fingers to test the artificial nerves; she could have had a replacement limb cloned but it was easier in her mind to acclimate to metal and plastic than it was to nerves that might have grown in differently.<p>

Too bad Naruto couldn't know the truth about her, that she was already a jounin and quite a few years older than her appearance suggested; she rather liked the brat and that was why she'd accepted this long-term assignment in the first place. Rumors of Suna's jinchuuriki had made the rounds of the border villages and were prime gossip material in river country; for all that she disliked the warmonger she agreed with Danzo that Naruto could not be allowed to roam around killing indiscriminately the way Suna's weapon purportedly did. Nor did she want the rambunctious genin to die pointlessly, and the Kyuubi was far too great a weapon to simply discard or place in someone who might not be able to wield its full power—or could be influenced by it.

The whole wheels-within-wheels attitude of the older shinobi grated on her, though she put up with it if it meant Naruto was safe. In the years she'd known him he'd become something akin to a little brother, or maybe an annoying nephew. It was hard not to smile at his antics so long as they didn't go too far and she made sure that there was some structure to his life. Between herself, the Hokage, and that teacher Iruka, not to mention a few random civilians such as the owner of the ramen shop that Naruto frequented, Miyuki had managed, she hoped, to ensure that Naruto would always have a reason to fight _for_ Konoha, rather than _against_ it. That the others who took a shine to him weren't part of the plan was inconsequential. Their influence in his life could be controlled. At the end of the day it was still Miyuki who spent the most time with him, and her orders came from Danzo.

Despite being underground the chamber which she met the aging warrior in was rather sunny, glass walls showing a scene of fields and trees. If it was a genjutsu it was a very good one as she didn't detect even the slightest hint of foreign chakra from the view. White marble inlaid into black led her to a desk carved from redwood, the bandaged man seated behind it. Ordinarily she would just send a messenger or use a dead drop to make her reports and receive her orders; this new development in Naruto's life required a more direct approach. How had Kakashi managed to slip him out of the city unnoticed?

Danzo didn't look up from his scrolls, even when he heard Miyuki snap her heels together to announce her presence. He knew she was in his office, of course, had watched her entire progress through the security cameras mounted behind false mirrors. The technology that his ally had given him was nothing short of astounding; he was willing to wager that few others in the world had such things backing them up. Cameras couldn't be fooled by genjutsu, after all, nor could they be disrupted like the senses.

"Proceed," he said, still examining the scroll he'd been given. It outlined a weapon, of that he was sure of, but the scale of it was unimaginable. Only the bijuu were more fearsome in their immensity, and they were quite difficult to control.

"Sir," Miyuki began, "I have verified that genin Uzumaki is not inside Konoha, nor was he seen leaving. His last known whereabouts were on the Small Creek bridge that his genin team uses as a meeting point, after which neither he nor his fellow genin Sakura Haruno and Hinata Hyuuga were seen in the village. It is possible they left through a nonstandard route; however nobody has sighted special jounin Anko Mitarashi in a similar time frame, while their jounin instructor is known to have spent the night at a civilian's home before leaving her with his customary disengagement notice arriving at her residence five hours later in the same period. I can only hazard that he somehow convinced her to leave the village with them and bribed a few guards to not be at their posts when they departed. They could be anywhere in the Land of Fire by now."

"Troublesome, to borrow a phrase from one of our peers. And what of their influence on him? Have you any thoughts of that?" Miyuki shook her head slowly, pondering her next words carefully.

"Between their daily missions and my own cover I haven't had much chance to observe their interactions with him. Both seem to be of a positive if relatively minor influence on his behavior; the real danger is with Kakashi. If my suspicions are correct he is going to stress loyalty to team and village over loyalty to self or Hokage, and if Mitarashi gets involved, which she likely already has, it is entirely possible that she will teach them to be wary of anyone who is not their immediate mission handler. It is the worst possible situation for your scenario."

"The scenario is not in danger of failing. We merely need to tighten our grip on Uzumaki somewhat. What of your contacts in Cloud? Have they reported on the Nibi and Hachibi recently?"

"They report that the Nibi is moving as predicted, sir, while the Hachibi…is proving as difficult as usual to maintain any observation of. The host's erratic movements and odd behavior are causing problems when it comes to surveillance and more than one member of the pursuit team has quit so they don't have to listen to his _enka_ any longer than they have to."

"That is…unfortunate. They will have to be disciplined; one cannot abandon one's post because of something as minor as that."

"Perhaps, sir. I'll see to it personally. If I may, sir, eliminating them may not prove to be in our best interests. A temporary setback in their physical ability is recommended."

"Proceed at your discretion. Dismissed."

"Sir." As she departed the office, Miyuki expressed an inward doubt. As a person, Naruto was actually quite lovable and genuine in his desires; as a jinchuuriki, however, he had to become the best shinobi that could be made of him, somehow without sacrificing his humanity at the same time. She had a feeling that if things were different then perhaps he might have become some sort of ruthless destroyer, loyal to nothing and nobody. As things stood, Naruto was still beyond control, and that in part was her own fault. Miyuki had told to him the importance of being his own person, and taught him every trick she could to get him to pass his genin exams. If he'd failed just one more time, Danzo would have been given leave to teach him instead, and that would have ruined the young man that she was friends with.

But he still needed guidance, and Danzo had promised to protect him. All she had to do was give him monthly reports on Naruto's training and behavior, and bring any oddities to the old man's attention…not for the first time she wondered if she was doing the right thing.

* * *

><p>Shikamaru stretched, working the soreness out of his shoulders after yet another day of training. As much as he liked the woman he was certain Kurenai had gotten it into her head to kill them through hard work, putting stresses on his body (and his teammates' as well, of course) that he hadn't had to endure while a student, nor even with his family. Doing chores for his mother almost counted, but they needed doing anyway and it wasn't like you could escape the wrath of Yoshino if you shirked your duties. He was looking forward to relaxing with the boys, minus Naruto—nobody had seen him recently and more than a few people were breathing sighs of relief.<p>

He stopped by his house to let his parents know he'd be gone and would probably miss dinner; his mother forced a promise out of Shikamaru that he would be back before midnight, which meant he was fine to get in a minute prior to the de facto curfew and not get in trouble. It was a well-known fact in the Nara household that skirting the law was not only acceptable to but expected from ninja, and it meant he was going to be getting a lot of practice in ambiguity in the coming months. The less people knew about your intentions…

Meeting up with Chouji and Kiba on the way to the hot springs, Shikamaru found himself entering in the middle of a conversation.

"Would have invited Ino too, you know?" Chouji was saying as Shikamaru approached. "I sort of feel bad that she gets left out of our group activities half the time. Then again maybe she gets tired of seeing our ugly faces every day, right?" From atop Kiba's head, the mini ninken he was partnered with barked indignantly, prompting a series of short guffaws from the portly genin. "Don't get so angry, dude! It's cool, I wasn't talking about you." The puppy barked again, accepting a chip from Chouji's bag as a way of apology, leaving crumbs in Kiba's hair in the process. Since they were headed to the baths anyway, the shaggy-haired boy ignored it, rolling his shoulders in a very Shino-like shrug at Chouji's words.

"I'm not too worried about it; she's got her friends and we've got ours, and we can't drag her along on a guys' night out anyway, right? Shame it's just the three of us, though." Another bark from Akamaru had him quickly correcting himself. "Sorry, _four_ of us." They had of course invited Shino and Sasuke along, but the former had declined due to family business and the latter didn't even bother giving an explanation. He'd simply rather blatantly hinted that he spent enough time around the other two boys on his team and left it at that. Together, the three genin plus one puppy made their way down the street to the hot springs; Shikamaru could tell by the way Kiba was fidgeting that he was going to try peeping on the women's side. Again.

Not that he really blamed him—some of those women that frequented this particular spring were quite attractive (not as much as Kurenai-sensei, but even so)—he just wished that the word 'discretion' factored into his attempts. Like himself or, if the wild loudmouth ever got the inclination, Naruto. Being one of the few people who was well aware of Naruto's extraordinary ability at not being seen, Shikamaru had set out to learn it from him. That had actually been the start of their friendship, he reflected as he dumped cold water on his head to rinse off the shampoo it was drenched in, followed by the fateful decision to peep in on the ANBU locker rooms to gather data on how to make the perfect henge.

Following Chouji and Kiba into the water, letting out an appreciative sigh as the heat sank into his weary body, Shikamaru continued his pondering, remembering that first chase that had been oft-repeated. He almost suspected the special operations forces to not be trying that hard to catch Naruto given that they could just body flicker into his path, but observation of one such flight had shown different. The blond apparently had a preternatural ability to sense obstacles and also tended to change direction randomly. Couple that to Naruto's prodigious ability with henge, pulling off the jounin-level version of the skill as easily as breathing, and it made for an extremely difficult target to track.

"Man, Asuma-sensei's driving us into the ground!" Kiba finally complained after awhile. "It wouldn't be so bad if it were physical stuff, but no, he's making us use our heads. I swear if I have to memorize one more imaginary target I'm going to go ballistic."

"Huh? What are you memorizing targets for?" Chouji had a tray of sake floating in front of him, though at the moment he was contemplating the flowers stuck into the ceramic bottle as if it were a vase and not a container for liquor. "Sounds like you have it rough, though; all that Kurenai-sensei is making us do is run up and down trees while dodging kunai and shuriken while at the edge of chakra exhaustion."

"Brutal, man. Nah, our sensei's making us run memory drills—stuff like getting accurate counts of enemy forces when we only have one minute to observe them, recognizing a face we see for just five seconds, identifying a target based on vague descriptions—it's driving me nuts."

"He wants to turn your team into a recon squad," Shikamaru said with a yawn. He'd figured out the ulterior motives of the respective jounin instructors like a good little Nara, his mind working admirably even when his body wanted to fall apart. "Just like Kurenai-sensei's turning us into a capture squad, and God knows what Kakashi's doing with his team."

"How'd you get so lucky to have that total babe for your squad leader, anyway?" Kiba was understandably a little annoyed that his teacher was a middle-aged man rather than a pretty young kunoichi; had he Kurenai for an instructor, he'd learn whatever she wanted to teach him and beg for more just to see her smile. No way was he thinking of using that student-teacher relationship to find out where she lived and then peep on her while she was changing, no sir. In response to the question, Shikamaru grunted softly.

"She asked for us by name, I guess. Was probably worried that Asuma would just let us sit around on our asses doing nothing. I think she was worried about Kakashi doing the same thing—running missions and leaving self-improvement up to the squad instead of teaching them anything—but so far he's shown to be a moderately respectable instructor." Chouji glanced at his teammate and friend, picking the bloom out of the sake jar before pouring himself a cup, savoring the sweet wine. The exchange passed unspoken between them, a silent comment about Shikamaru possibly reading too much into things, and is sitting around doing nothing really that bad?

In Shikamaru's eyes, not really, though he also understood that he was a ninja now, even if still a rookie pulling jobs that in all honestly he and his friends shouldn't be doing; eventually they _would_ have to fight and it was better to be prepared physically and mentally because your enemy wasn't going to care if you were tired. And being that they were being made into a capture squad, it made perfect sense to push the three of them beyond their limits. Ino complained, naturally, loudly and frequently; Chouji and Shikamaru were both certain that like the two of them she'd picked up a secret habit or vice to help with stress relief, even this early into her career.

Chouji poured another cup after finishing his first one, then poured two more which he handed to his colleagues. Sharing a 'kampai', they lifted the saucers as one and downed the contents. Nothing was said of it, save to thank the rotund young man for sharing.

"At least one good thing is going to come of all this endurance training," Shikamaru stated after a few minutes of letting the aftertaste fade from his tongue. "Solid henge is an excellent tool for launching an ambush."

"Or for peeping, right, Shika?" Chouji laughed as the Nara heir splashed him with water, keeping a hand over the jar so none would sully the alcohol. "Oh, come off it. You know you would if you thought you could get away with it."

"Probably, Chouji; I'd much prefer to not have to hide to catch an eyeful of naked bosom."

"There's always strip clubs," Kiba offered, pulling Akamaru off of his head to let the pup paddle around.

"And how am I going to explain that in the books?" The Nara, like many other clans, had a central bank; all of their mission earnings went directly to the family account, with each member being granted a monthly allowance for personal expenditures. Thus they also had a master accountant, in this case Shikamaru's mother, who kept the books religiously and demanded to know the purpose of every withdrawal outside that allowance. Vices were, by their very existence, a strict no-sell.

"Save it up out of your personal allowance. Sneak in, I dunno. You're never gonna enjoy yourself from the sidelines." Kiba grinned and Chouji chuckled, patting the shadow master's shoulder amicably. "Or you could always ask sensei to strip for you instead of undressing her in your head."

"What."

"Come off it, Shika, we know you make googly eyes at her when you think nobody's looking."

"I do not," he said defensively.

"Oh wow, you _do!_ I was just teasing you, man! Wait until she hears about this!" Kiba started howling with laughter, missing the growl that Shikamaru sent to the young man that was practically a brother.

"Say one word about this to Kurenai-chan and I'll use Shadow Possession to make you dance naked down the main avenue. Got me?" Seeing that the languid shinobi didn't make idle threats, Chouji gulped and nodded. "Yeah, so can we stop talking about my total infatuation with my teacher before I have to kill someone?"

* * *

><p>On the other side of the screen dividing the male baths from the female, Team Eight's instructor was listening (courtesy of a sound-enhancing jutsu) and sharing a private smile with Suzume over how cute fresh genin could be. The Academy teacher didn't personally know Shikamaru, having been in charge of educating prospective kunoichi in various subjects, but through her friendship with Kurenai was privy to the ongoing development of the genin teams. So she was well aware of his supposedly secret affection in regards to the so-called Crimson Lady who happened to have him for a student. It was almost amusing, if they didn't think Shikamaru would seriously pursue a relationship if given motivation to do so. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time that a student fell for a teacher, though it was usually female for male and not the other way around.<p>

Being exceptionally skilled in genjutsu, and her team only just starting to learn, Kurenai was well aware of the trio's habits, as she watched them from time to time during her frequent bouts of insomnia; even D-ranked missions could be stressful if only for the sheer mind-numbing boredom that some of them could be, to say nothing of the infamous 'Retrieve Tora' mission that was posted at least once a week. She knew, then, about Chouji's drinking, although thankfully in moderation, and was intimately acquainted with Ino's fortune-telling. Quite frankly she had started to worry about Shikamaru, because as far as she knew the only habit that he had was Shogi, and he used that to train his mind so it couldn't really be counted as a habit or a distraction.

So in a way she was glad to learn that he did, apparently, have his own shinobi quirk, and if it meant flashing some skin to him from time to time or letting him get a peek at her coming out of the bath, Kurenai would gladly do so in the name of keeping him sane. And if some day Shikamaru was bold enough to come right out and ask her for some time alone, she'd allow that, too, and see where it led. They wouldn't be student and teacher forever, at least on paper.

"It is very sweet of him, isn't it?" Suzume purred, sinking down deeper into the water until it was up to her chin. "To be so enamored of his teacher, it's almost like something out of _Icha Icha._ Oh, I hope that there's a sequel to _Midnight_ soon!" Kurenai laughed, relaxing against the heated stones making up the wall of the scented pool, her arms resting on the lip as she shared a look with Suzume.

"You're still reading that, huh? Are you going to add this year's rookies to _your_ book?" Having been a teacher since she made chuunin, Suzume was one of those who could be called a friend to every jounin in the village. She was in the ongoing process of collecting stories from the jounin instructors, which included anecdotes regarding the quirks of their genin teams.

"Oh yeah, certainly. You don't know the other teams' quirks, do you, Kurenai? I know you keep close watch over your own well enough, but you sort of forget about everyone else."

"Not on purpose. But hell, you at least have a concrete curriculum to teach; I on the other hand have to come up with a lesson plan every day. …I hope you haven't put _my_ quirk into the book." Kunoichi were on the whole somewhat sexualized, or at least they had been; for Kurenai that meant the chest labeled 'kunai' was rather a repository of sex toys, one from every town she'd visited. Rather than use them, she merely collected them, being old-fashioned enough to find someone to take a roll in the hay with if she felt the need.

"No, of course not," Suzume lied. The book was for genin stories, true, but the quirks list was open to anyone to be placed on it. Keeping the list, of course, was Suzume's quirk. "But anyway, you want to hear Team Seven's, or Team Ten's?"

"Good question: who _do_ I want to embarrass with devastating personal information if I should ever need to turn a genjutsu against them? Let's go for Kakashi's team first. Sneaky bastard stole Hinata from me."

"Alright, well, I don't have any juicy dirt on Naruto just yet, aside from the glaringly obvious," by which she meant the Kyuubi, "but I have it on good authority that the Hyuuga girl, Hinata, spends about a thousand ryou a week on cigarettes. The pink one, Haruno, I honestly didn't pay much attention to her though there's rumors going around that she's got some sort of split personality disorder. How they let her get past the psych screening is beyond me. Think I could ask you a favor and when they get back in town you shadow them for awhile, pick up more info?"

"Sure, I can do that. But Hinata, a smoker? How did that happen, I wonder?" She knew the likely source of it, but until she knew for sure wasn't up for making wild guesses.

"Yeah, and get this, too: the last time she was spotted buying smokes was in person, after she got her hitai-ite, and even better she favors the same brand that Asuma does."

"Her and a thousand other ninja. Alright, since we brought him up, it's Asuma's turn to have his team embarrassed."

"Shino Aburame, I hear, won't enter or leave a room without touching the top of the door frame as he passes it. Some kind of self-created superstitious ritual, I think, because nobody else I know of does it. Kiba Inuzuka keeps a full wardrobe of women's clothing sealed into a scroll he keeps in his left sleeve. Why I don't know exactly and that's a question to ask at his next mental health review. Oh and speaking of mental health, I have personally observed and verified that Sasuke Uchiha will not look at a mirror if he can help it. We're raising a bunch of crazies, I tell you."

"Being crazy helps, Suzume. You know that. Otherwise we wouldn't have taken this job. Alright, so how are you going to grade this mission you've asked me to perform? D-rank? C?"

"Eh, you really want money? Surely you aren't that hard up for cash, Kurenai!"

"Fine, Suzume, but you owe me." In the meantime she started thinking about what to do regarding Shikamaru. To have such a dilemma so early, she must have been cursed with some awesome luck.

* * *

><p>Alone in his apartment, Sasuke glared at his reflection, continuing to see the face of his older brother instead of his own. It was starting to annoy him more than it usually did. No matter how often he locked, no matter how shiny or dull the surface, he never saw his own face. It was always Itachi's, and he couldn't bear to look at it for very long, couldn't stand to see the man he had sworn to kill forever out of reach. His sensei was not helping matters in the slightest, telling him to forget his plans for vengeance. Sasuke was playing along, for now, since he couldn't get stronger if he was thrown out of the program but his progress was just coming along so slowly and in the exact wrong areas! Asuma had some sort of plan for his squad and damned if Sasuke knew what it was—all he was certain of was that it was leaving him weak, unable to stand on his own and having to rely on the help of his teammates. He certainly wasn't going to achieve an active Sharingan at this rate, let alone develop the necessary skills to utterly obliterate his brother.<p>

Sighing quietly the so-called Last Uchiha put another crack in the bathroom mirror with a vicious punch that left his knuckles bleeding; picking the glass out of his hand, Sasuke bandaged it up and then shut off the light, dropping down onto the couch in his living room to study the scroll that the jounin Sarutobi had given him. It contained a beginner's lesson on memory improvement, on the admonition that he couldn't rely on a kekkei genkai he hadn't even manifested yet, and even if he did at some point gain the eyes that the Uchiha were famed for they were, in the words of his sensei, a weapon of last resort after everything else had been exhausted. It wasn't fair at all! The one person in the village with a Sharingan and he hadn't been given him as a sensei—instead that dead-last idiot and two girls were Kakashi's students and probably already learning their first elemental jutsu if the rumors were correct. Not that Sasuke didn't already possess a few of his own, but the Uchiha thrived on fire techniques and the Grand Fireball was considered a clan secret.

Or had been. He didn't know what sort of theft had occurred concerning his family's jutsu library but he wouldn't have been surprised if the jounin and ANBU had raided every last corner of it in the course of their so-called investigation. Sasuke sighed again and palmed his face, turning his eyes away from the scroll. Resenting others was coming far too easily, and he had to admit there was truth in the words that Asuma had shared with him in private.

"You want to get stronger, I respect that," he'd said after their last training session two days ago. "But you have to understand that there are no shortcuts to strength, and that there is more to being strong than just being able to throw a punch or pull off a jutsu. Physical power isn't the only thing in the world to consider." He'd reached over, and tapped Sasuke's temples meaningfully. "You might think that, if you get your eyes, that you'll suddenly become invaluable. The opposite is true. Without your eyes you are another soldier, an asset—and the army doesn't send its soldiers out to fight alone, does it?" In response, Sasuke had shaken his head, frowning as he digested the words. "You are currently one of only two people that we know about to bear the Uchiha name. If you do manifest your kekkei genkai that changes your status from asset to liability.

"You're just one ninja, Sasuke, and a genin at that. Making yourself a target is not going to help you gain strength. And sometimes strength simply isn't necessary to achieve your goals. There are circumstances in which a pawn can topple a king, and scenarios in which the knight is the most useless piece on the board. Right now you're a pawn—so what if you don't get to strike the killing blow? If the person wielding you knows what he's doing, justice will be served regardless. Personal vendettas, I'm sorry to say, have no place among your life as a shinobi. If you disagree I urge you to quit now and find someone who will give you the power you want."

Asuma took a long drag off of his cigarette in that moment, fixing Sasuke with a deadly stare that spoke volumes regarding his experience as a ninja, as a war veteran and a former member of the Daimyo's personal guard. "I'm not here to give you power. I'm here to give you skill, and teach you perspective. Whether you learn the lessons I have to teach is up to you."

Sasuke remembered the words well, and bristled under the implications. It wasn't that Asuma had said he was weak—at no point did he ever insinuate such, even—but the fact that, if he was reading into it correctly his sensei believed that power alone was not nor would ever be enough to win a fight. Then there was that comment about soldiers…didn't he understand that Itachi was his to battle, his to kill, and that he had to do it alone? It was the only way to avenge his family, to lay his clan's spirits to rest. He had to wonder if the former Guardian was saying that he _couldn't _do it alone, or that he could, but _shouldn't_? It was eating away at his subconscious and causing him no end of frustration that he couldn't gain the power he needed now instead of later.

Patience would have to be exercised. There had been some benefits, at least, to the persistent D-Ranks and constant training. Already he was faster than he had been upon leaving the academy, and as much as he didn't particularly want to, Sasuke was learning how to work with his squad to achieve their goals in the most efficient manner possible. But still he felt it wasn't enough. Still he felt that nothing ever would be. In some small part of his mind that he often ignored, Sasuke worried that he'd end up becoming worse than his brother. The thought disconcerted him and he swiftly squashed it underneath his perpetual anger at the world.

Never once did it occur to him that families vanished from history all the time. Nor would he ever believe that it wouldn't be so bad if his own lineage ended with him.

* * *

><p>For the briefest of moments, Anko allowed herself to be jealous of the brat, sleeping soundly inside the lean-to (now a hut, thanks to the efforts of his two teammates and an assload of shadow clones) with both of the girls snuggled up to him, the pink one nestled under his left arm, and the purple one cuddling up under his right, drooling on his chest. The stab of envy vanished underneath a wave of almost sisterly affection, and a cruel glee that she was about to ruin their peaceful slumber. Having ditched the mask under the assumption that Naruto would just figure out she wasn't Bear anyway due to being three inches shorter and moving like a woman, Anko had set her mission chronometer for midnight and settled in for some sleep herself. Now it was closer to an hour after the time she'd set for herself, letting them rest a bit longer than she'd originally planned out of pity for what she was going to do to them.<p>

There was absolutely no way the defenses they'd set up would work against a human. Wild boars, maybe, but they would avoid the strange scents anyway and were the largest things on the island by far. Not that they had any reason to expect human contact on an isolated island such as this one, but Koizuki was far from unknown and everyone and his mother kept it in mind as a possible destination should they need to lay low. Fortunately for them most who came here used it to recover or train so the chances of them getting into an actual fight were slim…but they still needed to learn that just because that they were in isolation didn't mean they could take it easy.

Striding into the hut, Anko took a moment to ogle Naruto again—she couldn't help that he was already so fit and trim and thus attractive—before she formed a set of hand signs and triggered the Loudmouth technique. It was her favorite skill and used properly could make the user heard for miles around, and here in the sticks it was the last thing anyone would be expecting to have used right next to them. People usually got the benefit of a few hundred yards of space between them and the user.

"Alright, you maggots!" she shouted gleefully. "It's time to wake up and start your day!" Predictably the Hyuuga girl shrank down deeper against Naruto, who shot bolt upright just in time to avoid a flying fist courtesy of Sakura. Some people were violent when they were woken up, and to his credit Naruto had already entered into a defensive stance, or as much of one as could be managed when he had a girl clutching his waist and he was still sitting in what passed for a bed. In the weak moonlight peeking through the wall slats, she could make out a reddish tint to his eyes. _So, don't make threatening gestures while you're in your den, eh, kid? I wonder if I should send a messenger bird to report this to the Hokage…nah. If he were going to go berserk he wouldn't do it with his friends nearby._ The hue rapidly faded back to the normal color that the boy was supposed to have and Anko breathed an inward sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted was to see whether he could access the beast lurking within.

"Who the hell are you?" Naruto demanded, the angry tone in his voice muted beneath the fatigue still clinging to his brain. "Why'd you wake us up?" Hinata was still clinging tightly to him, making the young man very aware of the shape of her body, and Sakura was awake now, too, gripping the single kunai out of the three they had which hadn't been turned into a tool. Rather than hold it in a reverse grip the way some might, Sakura preferred to wield it like an ordinary knife or dagger. Not that it would do much good against Anko, not when all three of them were so out of it that they could barely see straight. They made a classic error in eating too much before going to bed. Well, Anko had no sympathy for them.

"The name is Anko Mitarashi, little nuggets, and for the next twenty-eight days I'm going to make your life hell. On your feet! Move!" When they didn't respond she reached forward, grabbing a fistful of Naruto's hair so she could pull him into a standing position. "I don't think you heard me, nuggets! Get up and get moving! Last one to the eastern coastline loses clothing privileges!" That certainly got their attention, as nobody wanted to go around without covering (well, most didn't, she couldn't speak for everyone), and it was a good motivational tool. It also served a similar purpose to the bell test, as a matter of fact, in that it forced them to either work together and all suffer, or they would work against each other and someone would get abandoned.

Wearily the three of them shared a look, and then Sakura lunged at Anko's belly with the kunai, Hinata circling around to the side, trusting in the cramped quarters to facilitate the use of her family's Jyuuken style. The White Dragon school of Jyuuken was rather useful if the opponent didn't know its capabilities; unfortunately for them, unfortunately for Hinata, Anko was well aware of their capabilities. Sakura was the first to be taken out, a swift wrist strike against her temple halting the lunge and staggering her. The same strike then swept out to the side, fingers tangling into Hinata's shirt, bringing her forward into a knee lunge, and Naruto was simply tossed against the slats and pinned with a heel against his throat.

"Good effort, brats, but not enough to take me down. Now I said _move._" This time there was no hesitation. Anko smiled; the coming weeks were going to be fun.


	4. Methods and Motives

Panting hard, body aching, drenched with sweat and shivering in the comparatively cool predawn air, Sakura tried to remember the exact distance she'd run. How far had it been? The miles had bled together until she wasn't sure if had been one, two, five or more, and all without stopping to rest or rehydrate. She'd tried to keep up but somewhere along the way she'd fallen behind, been separated from the others by a genjutsu or a missed turn or _something_, not willing to admit that maybe she really was in that bad of shape to not be able to keep pace with the rest of her team. Finally she broke through the brush to see that they were there, out in the waves illuminated by the setting moon and the first inklings of morning twilight, and certainly they didn't look happy to be there at all.

Naruto's lips were blue as he tried not to shiver and Hinata, well, she was so pale that the blue of her veins could be seen against the stark white of skin, and both of them seemed to be absolutely miserable, if not for the fact that they were both holding large logs above their heads then for the fact that the water must have been somewhere around fifty degrees at best—she didn't know for sure. It had to be cold if it was inducing hypothermia. A smell from nearby brought Sakura's head to the side, peering to her left to spot a large fire with an equally large boar spitted over it. A voice she recognized as Anko's caused her to cringe as she called loudly for Naruto and Hinata to move deeper into the waves. Before she could move closer to the flames a booted foot pressed itself between her shoulderblades to drive her down into the sand. Spluttering madly, Sakura tried to push herself up but the weight was simply too much to bear and after a moment of struggling, she finally collapsed in defeat.

"Pathetic. That's all you've got in you?" Anko's voice was chiding—there was nobody else to speak to her, not really—and in response Sakura growled something very unladylike. "Look at you, and you call yourself a shinobi? I bet you spend more on your hair than you do on ninja gear. Alright then, Sakura, strip down." The foot removed itself and Anko's face appeared in Sakura's vision. "Then grab a log, tie it to your back, and give me fifty push-ups. _Oi, __brats!_" her ire turned itself onto Naruto and Hinata, who visibly cringed under the verbal assault. "_Don__'__t__ just __stand__ there!__ Pump __those __logs! __Work__ those __muscles!__"_

Cowed by the anger rolling off of their impromptu teacher, the affected genin began to lower the logs to their shoulders and push them back up, Hinata having to put visible effort into it, unlike Naruto who seemed to have figured out how to use his chakra to keep his body warm—or was just very good at hiding his distress. Though there wasn't any insult beyond the word 'brats' both could sense her annoyance with them, the reason why they were out in the cold surf to begin with. After all, what was Kakashi's first lesson for them? _Without__ the __team__ there __is__ no __mission, __without __the __mission __there __is __no __ninja. __Those __who __abandon __the __mission __are __trash; __those __who__ abandon __their __comrades __are __worse __than __trash._ And what had they done? Naruto wanted to smack himself for not checking to see if Sakura was still keeping up with them; he'd been so preoccupied with the team's headlong flight that he didn't even check his surroundings, and wondered why it was that he had become de facto leader in Kakashi's absence.

He took a moment to examine the facts. True, Sakura had come far since the genin test, and could probably kick her Academy self's ass, but she'd only been putting effort into it for a month and her physical shortcomings had to be accounted for. Hinata on the other hand was physically capable, but she possessed an annoying tendency to go along with what others said regardless of what her own opinion was. And with Naruto being the most headstrong member of the group it meant that she would follow him without question, never mind that she apparently had a fangirl crush on him! What was it that he'd heard? A team needed to be able to trust each other, know when to act and how without any exchange of words.

Right now they didn't have that. In a way he was actually glad that they had been thrown onto the island with a slightly mad kunoichi. It would give them a chance to work on their shortcomings, improve their team dynamics and just generally become better shinobi without the distractions of make-work missions or petty rivalries and obsessions. But if that was the case…why was Hinata there? Not for the first time in his life Naruto grumbled in confusion as he tried to ascribe some logic to the team assignment that he really hadn't had time to before. One thing was certain, though: he'd have to get it into their heads that he was no leader. Not yet, anyway.

* * *

><p>It was hard to ignore the fact that Sakura was stark naked as they sat around the fire, warming up and eating heavily of the animal that Anko had been cooking in between shouting orders at the genin. Fighting off a blush, fighting off the urge to let his eyes slide to his left, Naruto focused instead on the meat in his hands as he tore it mercilessly from bone, savoring the cooked flesh even if it was lacking in any sort of flavoring beyond that of pork, saltwater and smoke—standing in the waves until sunrise after having been woken and sent on a miles-long run through the woods took its toll, even on him, and hopefully they'd get a chance to <em>sleep<em> soon. Ruefully he realized that wasn't going to happen, somehow, and that the trio would be lucky to get five hours out of every forty.

"Ugh! What, is she trying to get us up to ANBU level or something?" Hinata proclaimed out of the blue, coincidentally giving voice to Naruto's thoughts. "I know we need some work but this is just ridiculous!" Both he and Sakura were staring at the Hyuuga now, Naruto in mid-chew as he processed a few facts. _Fatigue __makes __Hinata __bitchy; __combine __that __with __high __stress __and __she __gets __mouthy._ Filing that away for future reference, Naruto shrugged and took a swig from his canteen to wash down the morsel he forgot to finish chewing in the wake of the outburst. He added a mental note to never piss Hinata off. Shy though she may be he had seen what antagonizing her resulted in the one or two times someone was dumb enough to provoke her and the results were, to say the least, not pretty.

"Maybe she just thinks it's funny running us into the ground," Sakura groused, before peeling a strip of meat off of a rib with her teeth and slurping it down as if it were a noodle, fat and all. She wasn't even complaining about it ruining her diet, but then again after being put through sets of fifty from everything to crunches and squats to lateral lunges and handstand push-ups, she was too wiped to think about something as pointlessly silly as keeping her figure. She recalled her mother's cooking and the mildly disapproving stares she'd get when she skipped dinner or hung out in the library instead of training. Well, she wasn't skipping meals anymore; the last month's intense efforts to keep up with the pace Kakashi set for them combined with demeaning but physically demanding D-rank missions left her with an appetite that was sure to have Matsuki smiling in secret.

So far, though, the pace that Anko had set far outstripped anything that they had to endure under Kakashi. The sun hadn't even risen yet and she'd already run them ragged, and kept them at whatever strenuous activity she thought up for them until finally calling for a rest at daybreak. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Naruto had a scroll open, from which he unsealed a set of anatomy textbooks and a fuuinjutsu codex. He then created a number of clones, setting them to work on reading the material within. Every so often Naruto would look to their temporary instructor while he ate, though she didn't apparently have any reservations against him doing any study work. Finally, Sakura's curiosity got the better of her.

"Naruto, why are you having your clones read that stuff, and how did that scroll not get destroyed?" She paced over to one of the clones and took a peek at its book over the shoulder. _What __does __he __need __theoretical __biology __for? __And __this __one __is __a __dissertation __on__ sealing __in __relation __to __the __human __body__…__chemistry__…__internal__ medicine__…__man,__these __are__ some __random__ subjects._

"Let's answer your second question first," Naruto replied—after giving a long, attention-generating belch, that is. "The scroll is waterproofed, and as for why clones, anything and everything they learn will be passed on to me. I actually didn't realize this at first; Kyuubi clued me in on it, since he apparently was looking when I read the scroll containing the technique. I only skimmed over the description…" He shifted uncomfortably, as the night he stole the Kinjutsu Codex was not a particularly fond memory for him. The truth of that night was something he'd rather sweep under the rug. "Sometimes it helps having a second consciousness sharing your body, other times not so much." Sakura nodded; she could certainly sympathize with that, if not to the same degree then at least with the fundamental basis. She watched as he moved off to be by himself, settling a good fifty yards away once he had finished stripping the meat from the bone he held. Moving to follow, Sakura stopped when she felt one of the clones grab her arm and shake his head at her disapprovingly.

"Boss doesn't like to be disturbed while he's training," he told her. "Kyuubi's chakra is dangerous and if he gets out of control it's safer if we have a head-start."

"He's training to control the Kyuubi's chakra?" Anko queried the clone, who nodded at her before turning his head back to the book.

"Yes he is, and has been doing so for the last two years. The idea is that he'll use the Kyuubi's energy to supplement his own power, or in place of it, so he still has juice to power techniques left over if we get into a prolonged fight. On top of that he thinks he could use it to supercharge any seals he makes, especially barrier or explosive types, but in order to do that he needs to be able to access it at will and…well, Kyuubi's a bit of a bastard and doesn't like his power being taken for trivial stuff."

"So, in other words, he's more or less in a mental battle with the beast every time he needs to use its power?"

"Something sort of like that, yeah," the clone replied with a shrug. "Though let me tell you, trying to find an isolated spot in the village is tricky. Now that the secret's out he's probably gonna start asking for help."

"I can see how not wanting to wake up the whole damn village would be a problem." Stroking her chin, Anko considered the possibilities. Other villages had jinchuuriki, of course, sometimes two, and in one very rare instance in the past, three, and they were all taught to harness their bijuu's abilities…with one exception. There have been, to date, three Kyuubi jinchuuriki and the first two didn't even try to utilize it unless absolutely necessary. Naruto, for all the revelations about his real ability, lacked the skill and experience that his predecessors possessed, and even though he was already showing the Uzumaki penchant for surprising advances he was still leagues behind the other known hosts, and to make matters worse there was next to no information on what benefits he could gain from using his prisoner's chakra.

The abilities of the other bijuu were well-documented, naturally, and it stood to reason (she'd seen a few of the dossiers herself) that Konoha had intelligence on the other bijuu if not who currently possessed them; Kyuubi, by contrast, was a mystery, and though Anko remembered the night of Naruto's birth—unlike other events from that year—the Fox had used few, if any, of its unique powers. From the look of things Naruto was going to try and change that, and use versions that were more suited to humans and their limitations, if he could learn any of them at all. A pang of regret stroked itself against her heart, quashed ruthlessly beneath cold logic.

_Sandaime __didn__'__t __want __Naruto __used __for __a __weapon __against __other __villages, __wishing __for __him __to __have __as __normal __a __life __as __possible._ Reflecting on the original decree, Anko sighed. _Fat__ lot __of __good __that __did__ for __him, __didn__'__t __it, __old __man? __It__'__s __starting __to __look __like __Naruto __is __going __to __shape _himself _into __a __weapon, __though __what __sort __I__ just __don__'__t __know, __nor __if __he __will __succeed __in __his __endeavors __or __not._ While she was meandering in her thoughts, save for giving an order that the clones share the anatomy texts (it was stuff they needed to know, too, after all), a pressure came from where Naruto had isolated himself. All three turned to watch as an orange shroud wreathed the boy, followed by first one, and then a second tail. The intense energy was worse than any killing intent that Anko had felt in her life, bringing back memories of that day twelve years ago, nearly thirteen now.

Just as suddenly as it began, it stopped, the cloak dispersing in a flash like flames extinguished by the wind. Naruto tried to stand but fell over, panting hard as he lay there on the sand. Slowly he staggered to his feet again, and trudged over with a sour expression on his face.

"Bastard still doesn't think I'm ready for anything more than two tails. That's fine, if I find myself matched against the Ichibi or the Nibi, but the ones between them and me are going to kick my ass." He explained to them as much as he could on how much the Kyuubi actually knew of the circumstances surrounding his creation, how to the bijuu were connected to each other, and how as a result the jinchuuriki containing them had a sort of telepathy between themselves. It got stronger the closer they were, of course, and against an experienced host his thoughts were an open book. At the end he had three very bewildered kunoichi staring at him and he realized that he'd just wasted an hour explaining something that they weren't going to comprehend.

"Okay, look at it this way: I'll know if there's another jinchuuriki within ten miles of me, and the closer we get to each other the better able we are to pinpoint the other's location. Within five miles we are able to detect each others' emotional states—or so Kyuubi tells me—and within a mile we can actually use telepathy to talk to each other. The older a jinchuuriki is, the stronger the telepathy gets and they can read another host's thoughts if they wanted to.

"In other words the Rikudo Sennin, when he was creating the nine, set it up so that we could avoid having to fight each other. I don't know what he was thinking when he showed people how to seal the bijuu inside human hosts, but most of the time the containers end up being weaponized. And why wouldn't they be? A human with the power of a bijuu could eradicate an entire army, and if the jinchuuriki gets too uppity they can be killed and the tailed beast placed in someone easier to control." Anko nodded in understanding, realizing that there were now added benefits to Naruto being there on the island with them; just as the clone had said, here he could train jinchuuriki techniques without causing any undue alarm. She almost asked how Naruto could know anything about the Sage of Six Paths when they didn't teach that in the Academy and Kakashi certainly hadn't told them, but remembered just in time that Naruto _did_ contain the Kyuubi, meaning that the beast likely had insights into the Sage's intentions that contemporary scholars lacked.

"You know, with all the terrible secrets being revealed in the last few days, I think I need a cigarette to forget all this," Hinata announced, shooting Anko a sour look. The jounin just smirked and drew the pack out from the things she'd confiscated from the Hyuuga princess, dangling it in front of the genin's face and grinning as Hinata made a grab for it, only to fall on her face following Anko jerking it sharply away. "That's not fair, sensei! Give! I special-order those!"

"Wow, really?" Naruto was doing his best impression of a gecko, staring goggle-eyed at her while at the same time sporting his idiot's grin. "That I did _not_ know."

"You know smoking's a bad habit for a ninja to have, Hinata-chan," was the jovial reply. "You get hooked on things like this and they'll ruin your career."

"I'd say she's already hooked," Sakura quipped, crossing her arms over her breasts. To his credit Naruto didn't glance in her direction which, admittedly, stung a little bit because she'd come to expect all sorts of attempts to get looks at her skin and now that she was under enforced nudity he wasn't so much as peeking. Then she noticed that one of his shadow clones was staring right at her and blushed. _Of__ course __he__ doesn__'__t __need__ to__ look __himself,__ he __can __just __have __his __clones __do __it __and __enjoy __the __memory __later. __That__'__s __goddamn __fucking __cheating._For a moment she allowed herself to scowl at the original, before softening again as she acknowledged that they were ninja and thus cheating was part of the job.

"Anyway, brats, I've decided your training regimen. Morning is going to start with a run to get your blood flowing. Then you'll spend an hour in the surf doing even more cardio. We'll break for breakfast, do some academics for about an hour or two—geography, history, math, and whatever else I think you need to know—and then in the afternoon you're going to use elemental training to burn off as much chakra as you can to bring you to the brink of exhaustion, followed by flexibility training until evening, then dinner and after that you have time to yourself, though I expect you to bed down for the night no later than three hours after sunset. Every third day, I'm going to use a nifty little genjutsu to teach you everything you need to know about sneaking in, sneaking out and most importantly how to build and maintain a cover. And last but not least you're each going to have to pick up an instrument—lucky for you I've brought some along. Before you ask, no, you can't use the illusion training for that last bit. Real musicians have calluses, and traveling performer is one of the easiest covers you'll ever have. Not the only one, but the easiest."

"What genjutsu would you be using, then?" Hinata asked, curious as to what sort of technique their sensei would employ.

"Glad you asked. It's actually one of Kurenai's original creations. One hour outside—which is how long I'll have you in there—equates to a full month within the effects of the genjutsu."

"Why not longer?" This question came from Sakura, who was looking at her teammates to gauge their reactions, though she had her guess as to what the reason was.

"One hour is the longest I can maintain the illusion, at my current level anyway. I have heard there's a similar technique which can stretch three seconds into three days, but it's bloodline-exclusive. Ordinarily I wouldn't even _consider _using this technique on genin, but out here in the middle of nowhere my training options are limited. There is one more thing. Pinky, get your clothes back on, punishment's over."

Biting her thumb and swiping the bloody digit across the plate covering her left shin, Anko unsealed a trio of outfits, what looked like standard mesh shirts and pants appearing on top of neatly-folded sleeveless black shirts and brown trousers; the outfits had the red spiral common to Konoha chuunin vests on the back when examined, and weighed quite a bit more than regular clothing did. The mesh as well wasn't made of netting, but rather an elastic material that tried to shrink back to its original size when stretched.

"You'll wear this stuff during your dexterity practice and any other time I tell you to. The clothing isn't heavy enough to slow you down, but rather to force you to put effort into your actions, and the same deal with the mesh. It's not designed to restrict your movements any, but rather build your stamina above and beyond what you'd gain from weight training. I don't intend to teach you any fighting techniques, by the way, only the basics of elemental manipulation and of course how to dodge so you don't need to learn any taijutsu forms. Most ninja, you'll find, abandon set taijutsu styles by the time they're veteran chuunin, and few jounin that I know of even use taijutsu at all, let alone a particular form. Now…let's start learning. If this works out I'll recommend it to Kakashi; otherwise I'll let him decide what you need to work on and what can be left alone."

* * *

><p>Matsuki steeled herself and then lifted her hand to knock on the door to Kakashi's apartment, hoping the man was in. She hadn't seen her daughter recently, though her sensei had been seen around town doing various things; hopefully it was just a fluke and he wasn't actually still in Konoha while Sakura was off heaven knew where with just her teammates—especially that Naruto boy. Not that she had anything against the Kyuubi container but he was at that age where young ninja started to figure out all the <em>nifty<em> things their bodies could do, and she didn't mean anything that required the use of chakra. The elder Haruno kunoichi knew that the Uzumaki heir wasn't as dumb as he played for the crowd, not by a long shot—Matsuki was fully aware that behavior was as much a weapon as any kunai or tanto, and Naruto could play a crowd like a fiddle.

That and he had far too much of his mother in him. The Bloody Red Habanero was a monster on the battlefield, true, but she had also possessed a sharp tongue coupled to a sly wit that more often than not left people flustered at the double entendres she could work into a conversation as effortlessly as breathing. Minato may have been a fan of his sensei's little orange books, but there was no denying who the real pervert was. Hand poised to knock again, Matsuki damn near smacked Kakashi in the face instead, as he had opened the portal while she was lost in thought.

"Good morning, Haruno-san. What can I do for you?"

"Oh, I'm just…wondering about Sakura's whereabouts. I haven't seen her lately, have you?"

"Mm, let me think…yes, I hired one of my fellow jounin to supervise my team on a short excursion to a remote location where they could train undisturbed by other genin or missions that might disrupt their concentration…you were concerned?"

"I am her mother, Hatake-san. Concerned is nothing compared to my current state of mind. May I come in? I don't mean to stay long." Kakashi nodded, stepping aside to let the woman in and invited her to sit at the tea table, where another woman was already poised to serve, wearing an elegantly embroidered kimono. "Oh, pardon the interruption. I didn't realize you had a tea service in progress."

"Don't worry too much about it. In fact I was expecting you."

"You…you were?" Matsuki asked as she took her place kneeling opposite Kakashi.

"I like to keep up to date on my genin and their families. Now I know I should probably have cleared this excursion with you first, but I was hoping it wouldn't be too much trouble. You are returning to active duty yourself, aren't you, Haruno-san?"

"Yes, that's right. I have the papers all signed and ready to submit. I'm pretty sure I'll need reevaluation and a considerable amount of effort to get back to where I was before Sakura was born…and I was hoping that I wouldn't be turning them in until after my daughter completed at least two C-ranks. I have to know that she can take care of herself, Hatake-san." Pausing in her speech, Matsuki took a sip of the tea that was laid before her, savoring the blend of herbs and wondering if this was one of the brands imported from Lightning, or an esoteric variety grown in River.

"I understand your concern as both a shinobi and a parent, Haruno-san," Kakashi spoke to her gently. Even if he wasn't a parent himself, he understood quite well the sort of worries that family could submerge themselves in. "Which is why I have hired only the best to ensure that Team Seven will be adequately prepared for whatever challenges may await them. I admit that it means I am slacking off in my duties as their sensei somewhat, but as you know they are the first team I've passed since I first became a jounin and I have been shown in no uncertain terms that I need time to prepare myself, as well. Rest assured, Haruno-san, that I know how the team functions together. All they really need is experience, and someone to motivate them to excel. Your daughter especially has the makings of a great kunoichi and hopefully when she returns, she can learn a few tricks from her mother."

The two sat in silence for awhile, drinking the tea as it was served and snacking on sugar wafers; before long though the service was complete, the porcelain set aside to be packed away and the hostess keeping a low profile while waiting to be dismissed.

"Might I ask, Hatake-san, what you think their role will be, as a team and as individual shinobi?"

"Infiltration and espionage is what I'm leaning toward, Haruno-san. It's high time we started training more sneaks, don't you think? Free up ANBU to focus on more important things like internal security and eliminating spies."

"So long as they don't encounter any scarlet scrolls I will keep my objections to myself, Kakashi. The art of seduction is one skill I wish not to pass on to my child. Were her father alive I doubt he would have a conflicting opinion on that matter."

"You know as well as I do that those sorts of missions are never given to genin or at least not to rookies." Sighing as he regarded Sakura's mother, Kakashi continued. "If it helps, I don't expect them to be taking very many long-term assignments requiring any false identities. For the most part I'm seeing them as being the sabotage and information theft sort of infiltrators, rather than surveillance and reporting. In fact I am hoping that the genin teams that were formed this year will become very familiar with each other. From what I can gather, Asuma's working his team into battlefield recon specialists while Kurenai's focused on making capture and interrogation experts out of the old Ino-Shika-Cho combination. Team Ten—excuse me, I think Asuma's headed for calling them Team Falcon—scouts, Team Eight gets the pertinent details, and Team Seven makes the grab. At least, that's the dynamic I'm looking to foster, at any rate."

"Out of curiosity who did you hire?"

"Anko Mitarashi."

"The Snake Charmer's teaching them? I hope all goes as well as you say. I'd like to tell you one last thing, Kakashi-sempai." Matsuki caught him with a look that could have immolated stone. "I understand that as their sensei, no one short of the Hokage has authority to tell you how to handle your team, but as the mother of one of your genin I would appreciate it if you inform me _before_ you send my daughter off to be alone with the son of the most lecherous kunoichi to have ever worn the Leaf."

"Ah, it's no trouble, Haruno-san. I'm fairly certain Naruto knows how to control himself." _It__'__s__ Hinata __that __I __worry __about. __Anko, __you__'__d __better __break __her __crush __on __him._

* * *

><p>Kiba lunged and landed a solid strike inside Sasuke's guard, knocking him back a few paces and forcing him into a different stance, his perpetual scowl taking on a tone of irritation. Angered, the Uchiha engaged in a lunge of his own, smashing the plate of his hitai-ite against the inu-nin's cheek and sending him sprawling to the dirt of the sparring field. Rubbing the bruise forming on his face, Kiba grinned and rolled backward to avoid the stomp that would otherwise have connected with his gut and as he gained his feet propelled forward, sweeping a roundhouse kick at Sasuke's head, which he ducked underneath and countered with an uppercut which was in turn stymied by the follow-through kick from Kiba's other leg.<p>

The two ended the exchange occupying each other's previous positions, Kiba in a loose Wolf stance, arms out and bent at the elbow in preparation for a grapple, while Sasuke settled into a textbook Horse, staring down his sparring partner. It seemed to Kiba that he drew Sasuke for a sparring partner far too often, as if Asuma were trying to get the two of them to work out their differences through open combat rather than letting them stew and cause problems down the line. Their teacher's lecture was fresh in his mind, as it had only been delivered a scant hour before. Team Ten had met, as usual, in front of the twin oaks that served as the unofficial southern gate to Training Ground 12, where Asuma had posed to them a question.

"What do you see?" he'd said to them.

"A pair of trees, sensei," Shino replied. Asuma spared him a glance, and then gestured down at the roots where they dug into the ground.

"How many roots do you see, Kiba?" The genin answered that he couldn't count them all, because they ran underground and were perpetually splitting off from each other. Asuma had then pointed up at the boughs of the oaks, to where they intertwined with each other and wove into a natural fortification.

"What do you see, Sasuke?"

"I see a worthless tangle of limbs."

"I'll tell you what I see. I see deep roots, running farther and broader than the branches. I see thick boles that have weathered countless storms. I see branches intertwining, lending their support to each other, each making its brother strong enough to support three times the weight it could otherwise. Do you know why I asked you what you saw?" Kiba had rolled his eyes in that moment, seeing another philosophical lesson on the Will of Fire coming. He hadn't been wrong.

"The roots run deep, but they can be poisoned, or wither from drought and disease. The trunks are sturdy, resilient and firm, but even the thickest of bark can be cut into and let the tree fall. The branches are broad and provide shelter from the sun, and yet they can fall to the storm. But look here. These two trees are in fact one—if one's roots wither, the other will nourish it until it recovers. If one trunk is severed, it will lean against the other for support. And these branches, on their own fragile and weak, are together stronger than any wind.

"The different parts of the tree serve many different symbolic aspects—the roots your foundations as shinobi, the trunks family and clan techniques and teachings, the branches the individual shinobi—but no matter what you must remember this." His arms spread wide to encompass the whole of the forest that surrounded and was part of Konoha. "None of us stand alone. Individuals may fall, true, whole portions, whole families may disappear, but regardless of what befalls us we are stronger together than we ever are apart. The roots of Konoha shinobi run deep, and like these twin trees we are reliant on each other lest we are cut down."

Of course such lessons were hard to take to heart when one of the people who was supposed to be learning them was still hell-bent on proving that he was the best…not that Kiba couldn't sympathize, since he was pretty sure that if one of _his_ family members flipped out and killed everybody he'd be pretty solidly attached to the idea of proving he was the strongest just to avoid that feeling of vulnerability, himself. But his mother had her own take on it. There was always someone stronger, always someone who can take your best hit and keep coming, and in those times you have to get smart, get sneaky. Run away, set traps, be a right _bastard_ if you have to but don't try to take your enemy head-on if you know it won't affect him.

Tomorrow they'd be running an actual recon mission, if all went well, albeit one that was confined to the village and people would be in on it. Kurenai had the idea for her team and Asuma had cribbed it off of her, though Kiba wasn't sure that Konoha's citizens would be quite as appreciative in that they would be Team Falcon's test subjects.

As they left the training ground for some much-needed sustenance, Shino was praying to the gods for their teacher to get some better analogies.

* * *

><p>Hinata frowned, opening her eyes to look at her friends again. She'd done this before, reading the chakra coils of her team (purely as a means of measuring their progress) and Naruto's were the same as ever… Sakura's, on the other hand, seemed larger than before, though supposedly that was due to the training that they'd been at for a little over five days. The frown deepened. She had noted growth in Sakura before—prior to their arrival on the island Hinata had recorded that her coils were bigger than they had been at Team Seven's formation, but that was due to a month of hard work—but this growth had occurred after a mere week. Something just didn't make sense.<p>

Her vision tightened onto the narrow thread of chakra that connected her to the object of her admirations, and the frown mutated into a scowl. It vanished from her features though, and as she shut off her bloodline ability Hinata happened to sweep her eyes over Sakura. There, for a fleeting moment, she caught sight of two things. The first was a little knot of chakra between the cerebrum and the cerebellum, a darker indigo compared to the normal blue of Sakura's life-energy. The second, much more fleeting, was a ball of green settled behind the hara, and it appeared to be feeding into Sakura's chakra network.

Rather than solving the mystery Hinata found that revelation had only deepened it, and as her vision returned to normal she caught on to the fact that Sakura was gazing at Naruto in contemplation. _What __else __does __she__ know __that __I __don__'__t?_ Of course, she couldn't know without straight up asking what the other girl was thinking about, and at the moment it didn't really matter. Their first session of image training, as Anko called it, had allowed them to progress in leaps and bounds, learn about each other and interact on a level they never had before. The time spent in the illusion had been…odd, to say the least. Since they didn't feel fatigue, hunger, thirst or anything detrimental in the genjutsu unless Anko wished it, the trio had pretty much been awake for four weeks straight, with very little in the way of breaks. Those breaks had, however, come with the revelation that Naruto and Sakura both had rather _vivid_ imaginations, if the things they were conjuring up with thought alone were any indication.

Thoughts of nubile bodies aside, Hinata contemplated the question of Naruto yet again. Their conversation the day after his admission to them had suggested Sakura knew exactly who his family was, who his father was, the same as Hinata herself knew—or at least possessed enough related facts to piece things together. It had taken a few carefully worded questions to Anko, but the reaction to them had only confirmed her suspicions. And then she'd been told in no uncertain terms that neither she nor Sakura were going to inform Naruto of his parentage—that even if they were no longer in the Fire Nation or Konoha its laws still applied to its citizens. It had been a major blow to realize that what she had believed to be a lie she'd dreamed up to someday soon divulge to her teammate and give him something positive in his past was not only true but a high-level secret.

Anko had relented on enforcing the law because as she stated it didn't fully apply to the younger generation and one couldn't fault another for being smart enough to put two and two together; she was, however, adamant that Naruto not be told "directly", to use a word she had let slip her tongue. There were those who feared that if he knew that he'd go on some roaring rampage of revenge. Sakura had immediately stood up to protest that Naruto would never do such a thing, that he cared about them more than he cared about himself, and promptly stalked off, though as they had been inside their teacher's genjutsu at the time the pink-haired girl had ended up stomping right back into the room she'd just left.

With a heavy sigh she resolved to ask her questions in the morning, and laid herself on the furs they'd been gathering. She had to admit that snuggling into Sakura's side was almost as much fun as snuggling into Naruto's, though he always managed to wind up sandwiched between them no matter what position they were in upon attaining slumber.

Sakura, for her part, did not know what Hinata had seen with her brief scan and could only guess at what her inner self knew. The truth was hard to accept, and didn't reveal its secrets easily, no matter that she wasn't trying. At this point all she knew for sure was that she didn't know enough, and that had to change. And the first step in that would be to stop denying the truth; the façade could remain, but it was going to become just that, a false front. With her friends, with her team, she would let the real Sakura shine through. As with Hinata, her thoughts turned to Naruto, the question she had asked their teacher, and the tacit confirmation in her reaction and reply.

_The__ fact__ of __the __matter __is_, she thought with a sigh, _is __that __Naruto __probably __won__'__t __care __either __way __who__ his __parents __are. __He__'__s __lived __this __long __without __them, __trying __to __make __a __name __for __himself, __and __even __if __his __father _was _the __Fourth, __Naruto __would __never __invoke __his __name __for __personal __gain; __that would be too much like riding someone else's coattails and if there's one thing I've learned about Naruto is that he would rather be known for his own accomplishments__. _That was something Sakura could respect, being a second-generation kunoichi herself. Fortunately, or perhaps not quite, Matsuki Haruno had never been one of the shining stars that everyone looked to for inspiration, preferring to stay somewhere in the middle where she could be effective while also going unnoticed, but there were still those who recognized Sakura as Matsuki's daughter and wondered if she could be counted on the same way as her mother had been.

It was those people that Sakura longed to please, those people—and her team—that provided Sakura with the motivation to press forward even when faced with her own inadequacies. Someday…someday people would know Sakura. She'd make sure of it.

* * *

><p>There are many fortune tellers, mystics and so-called clairvoyants in the world, but few true seers. One such person was an elderly woman who lived in a shrine in Lightning Country, near the sea and far from the Cloud village. It was here that Tsunade found herself, her usual gray yukata and green haori traded for austere white robes that barely contained her figure, ascending the stairs to the shrine slowly. It was not by choice that she had come, but every prophecy, prediction and foresight given by this ancient maiden had come true. When she summoned you, you did not delay.<p>

Soon she had entered the shrine proper, kneeling on a thin tatami before an illuminated screen. Beyond was a figure in shadow, a voice as soft and pretty as a child's floating out to her ears. Despite her age, the Seer sounded much as she did those eighty years ago when she had received her first vision and predicted an earthquake that, to her shame, had gone ignored until the day the tremor struck, exactly when and where she had said. The Seer's attendants were gone from the temple, as this prophecy was for Tsunade's ears alone.

"Tsunade of the Sannin, listen well," the Seer began. "My Sight begins to fail me, as does my health, and soon my Gift shall pass to another. I have lived a life of austerity, knowing not the touch of another, the joys of a life lived for selfishness or selflessness—those who tend me fear, incorrectly, that were I to belong to another I would lose my Sight. It is not so, but they are too set in their ways. Soon their lines will end and the next Seer will be born to enjoy the life I could not lead, but that is not why I have summoned you." Tsunade remained silent, not given leave to speak. In a way this woman was far more powerful than the five Daimyo and five Kages combined, if only for the fact that she spoke the unerring truth. And she didn't mind letting the woman ramble on a little bit; such was her right, after all, for the role she had played in keeping the balance of power between the Elemental Countries.

"Your former companion Jiraiya has heard a prophecy from the Sages of Mount Myoboku—a prophecy which even now is on the verge of proving false. Twice he has thought a student to be the child foretold by the ancient Toads, and twice have they failed to meet his private expectations. One more shall he have, from the lineage of the blue dragon. I speak to you now your own prophecy: the carrier of the Leaf's burden will be in the palace of many pleasures, seeking a comfort he knows not. To spare you the risk of misinterpreting my words, I will tell you directly. Twenty-eight days from now you must be in the trading town of Akikawa, more specifically at the Golden Lion, and meet a person who shares many similarities to those from your past. I cannot say for sure what will happen if you do not meet this person; far too many possibilities stem from the event though no matter what happens I can tell you in all certainty that the scion of Madara will come for the keeper of the chains. When this will be, or why, is not within my Sight to know. Only what I have been shown can I tell.

"I trust you will heed my words, noble Sannin, and return to the woman you once were. My vision has been shared; I release you to meet destiny or defy it, as you will."

Bowing her head to the ground, Tsunade excused herself from the visionary's presence, and made all haste she could without seeming disrespectful to descend back to the house of supplicants, where she met Shizune with a grave look in her eyes. She hadn't set foot in Akikawa in almost twenty years, as, like Konoha, there was nothing left for her there.

"Pack your things, Shizune. We're heading out."

"Yes, ma'am, but where exactly are we going?"

"To the place of my birth," she replied solemnly. It was not going to be a happy journey.

* * *

><p>Ino allowed herself a grim smile. Today they were going to put their skills thus far to the test against a chuunin that the trio knew quite well, and who knew their capabilities as he had been one of the men to impart his wisdom while they were yet students, aspirants to the shinobi program. For the past month, when they weren't training their overall stamina, Kurenai had them trying to invent variations on the clan techniques they already possessed, and giving the three genin supplemental materials to play to their strengths.<p>

Genjutsu for Chouji, drawing on the massive amount of chakra needed for the Akimichi clan's Multi Size technique to interfere with another's senses. Medical techniques for Shikamaru, highlighting his incredible intellect and picture-perfect chakra control—the only one in their year who could do better was Sakura. And for Ino, an array of 'soft' techniques, centered on her knowledge concerning body language and emotions. She did feel a little guilty in not giving her something more powerful to play with, but the incipient heir to the Yamanaka fame already had her own ideas on how to modify the Mind Transfer.

They weren't allowed to practice any interrogation techniques just yet and Ino's progress on passive telepathy wasn't coming along as well as she liked; most days off she'd spend her free time simply watching people, picking one or two individuals to follow and trying to gauge their moods based on body language and posture. It was important for an intelligence operative to be able to recognize the smaller tells, which most didn't even realize they had, and use those tells to guide a conversation—or an interrogation—to get the needed intel from the target.

C&I squads practiced, for the most part, catch and release, especially during peacetime; 'hard' techniques and outright torture were reserved for enemy infiltrators, missing-nin and Bingo Book entrants. It was something of a game for Interrogation teams to try and catch each other, the loser would be held in detention for a few hours or a day, and then set free on their own side of the border, no harm save for bruised egos. Kurenai had informed them, as well, that oftentimes a capture squad would be hired out in tandem with a recon team to track down and locate an individual of interest, then engage and subdue the target for retrieval by the hiring village's own ninja. The reason for this was that each village used different methods for the task, and while a missing-nin from Iwa, for example, might know how to escape an Earth Dome Prison technique, a Lightning Cage (a specialty of Kumo capture squads) or Devil Snare (one of Kurenai's signature genjutsu) would be outside their realm of experience and allow an easier takedown. Very rarely was a kill-on-sight order attached to such missions, seeing as how despite being traitors the missing-nin could easily have picked up information about any ninja village they may have chanced to enter before their arrest.

More importantly the hired squad almost never got the full details of why a person left their village and almost always it had something to do with politics or psychology. Often times there were mitigating circumstances behind a ninja's defection which warranted a live retrieval. Of course there was the matter of Kiri, who had their own independently trained hunter-nin which were separate from the regular shinobi, and who had a high percentage of kill ratios on targets, but that was another matter entirely.

The grim smile turned feral for a brief instant as Ino anticipated a successful first test. A 'mission' like this one would serve to highlight how they had improved, and where they still needed work, not to mention it was a good reminder of why squads like her own drew missions direct from the Hokage instead of being hired out by clients within the country and from its neighbors. After all, information was only useful if it was up to date. Reconnaissance, infiltration, and interrogation were the three facets of true shinobi life. Forget all the flashy techniques and large-scale battles. Wars were won and lost behind the scenes, in silent struggles between small groups of specialists as they fought for knowledge, the most valuable weapon a ninja village could have.

That or a bijuu, but information on _those_ was so highly guarded that it would be easier trying to work the secret of fire out of a stone than to try and divulge information on a country's bijuu from one of its' shinobi. The most that could be gained at any one time by any one C/I squad was which bijuu a village held, and whether it was sealed or not.

Breaking out of her introspective state, Ino turned her gaze over to Shikamaru, who was going over some last-minute preparations with Chouji and their teacher. Personally, the Yamanaka would rather she had a more active role in the ambush than simply shadowing the target and reporting his position to the other members of her team, but as they were in 'friendly' territory and her repertoire of offensive techniques was rather limited, could not be used to goad the victim into a trap.

Unless she somehow got an opportunity to snare him with the Mind Transfer technique and literally walk into the trap, but such a move was risky and without someone nearby to sequester her soulless husk in safety could have disastrous consequences. She had been working with her father on a method to actually split her spirit in such a way that she could remain conscious and at the same time force a target to do her bidding, much like the Shadow Possession that Shikamaru specialized in, but either she didn't have enough chakra or she was missing something very important. So for now she'd pulled the easy job. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kurenai leap away, followed by her two teammates. The mission was on. Ino suppressed the urge to rub her hands together in devilish glee.

* * *

><p>Deep beneath the sea, between the Land of Fire and the Land of Water, the remains of a once-great fortress rested, the hulk of an armored pyramid slowly rusting as the ravages of time and tide ate away at the high-tech polymer covering meter-thick alloy plates and into the metal beneath, opening holes into a stronghold once deemed impenetrable by human efforts. Of course, that had proved false, as readily as was proved there to be no such thing as an unsinkable ship, but those who made such claims were long dead, perished at the hands of the countrymen they once protected.<p>

Kisame was one of a rare handful of beings who could actually enter the mausoleum, and enter it he did, swimming as deep as he could and then some, chakra reinforcing his body against the incredible pressure and biting cold. Breathing through the gills he had been bestowed with, eyes piercing the darkness with what amounted to ocular sonar, he returned to the fortress as he had done in times past, always at the behest of his leader, to raid its supply of spoils yet again. As before he was instructed to collect whatever he could that had not been damaged by saltwater, that had not been corrupted by a millennium (or more) of disuse.

Always he was told to ignore the computer equipment and focus on collecting things like bottles of pills, prosthetic limbs, medical records and chemistry tools. Twenty years ago the word 'cybernetic' had no meaning to shinobi and most people were still unaware of what it was—even Itachi, for all his intelligence, could not properly grasp the method by which man and machine could be connected, intertwined. But Leader could. He could and he did, and he supplied those he trusted with the fruits of Kisame's labor. Yet the man would not speak of where he gained such knowledge of this trove of advanced technology from, and the masked man who was sometimes seen conversing with Leader or his trusted lieutenant was recalcitrant to say, proving adept at escaping whatever trap he and Itachi set up to capture him in.

The production of advanced prosthetics, so much more refined than a simple replacement for aesthetic purposes, was as yet a cottage industry, as the demand for such things (at least among Ame ninja) was not high; most of what was made was sent to the Leader's agents in other villages, other nations, bribes to have them align themselves with his plans. Many of the Shinobi Villages, both major and minor, had experienced soldiers they wished to put back into the field, and these artificial limbs and organs were instrumental in that. For now those plans remained secret, though Kisame knew that soon they would be made aware of the Leader's intentions.

Until then, however, Kisame followed orders, and those orders said to collect what he could from the sunken stronghold. He knew his way around by now, the same gills that let him breathe underwater allowing him to inhale the fetid air inside the tomb without any trouble. Inward he swam, past the giant crucifix, past the many rusting hulks of giant metal skeletons, into a partially collapsed hallway and then up a shaft, clearly for an elevator though the cab was long gone; he took a brief detour into the room with the three towers, metal pillars of a roughly square shape topped by what was clearly a command deck. There was air in this room, strangely enough, even though the door was open to the flooded hallway beyond. Some power he didn't yet understand was keeping this room pristine, and he dared not linger, even if one of the screens was lit and displaying information.

Making haste to the hospital wing, Kisame unfurled his special waterproof sealing scrolls and got to work. Leader wouldn't like it if he spent too long in the tomb. Distracting himself from the potential of raising his master's ire with the task at hand and thoughts of that cute little Isaribi, Kisame began to sequester away everything he thought that would be of value. Unheeded, the screen in the command center continued to display its warnings, the intermittent contact from nine distinct energy signatures displayed in their last known locations, a pattern of movement overlaid on a map nearly two thousand years out of date.

The same message played over and over, with nobody to read it, not even the ghosts of the men and women who once tended the machinery even now performing its duty tirelessly.

* * *

><p>Sitting in the evening light, tending to the remains of dinner and vowing that she was going to teach those three brats how to hunt, Anko allowed herself a moment of relaxation and self-reflection. The beauty of the False World technique was that it was exactly what it said on the tin. Unlike other genjutsu which required at least some measure of input from the caster, once False World was in place all that was required was a steady stream of chakra. Maintaining a single genjutsu for an hour was taxing on the best of days and if not for soldier pills, Anko could probably only have held it for a few minutes at best. But an hour was what she had said, and an hour was what she gave them. She'd held it for an hour, which to the genin was a month inside an illusory space, their bodies unmoving on the outside, as they wandered a mindscape replete with all the nuances of a true existence. The interval period between castings was the minimum amount of time she needed to recover to the point where she could cast it again.<p>

Inside the dreamlike space, the three genin and their instructor could practice all sorts of infiltration methods—she could drill them in theory and execution, planning and subterfuge, all the exquisite details that otherwise would have taken literal years to impart given the necessities of eating, sleeping, missions and training. They would leave the genjutsu with skills they had not possessed a mere sixty minutes before and though they and Anko would be quite exhausted the price was worth it. Their time would be spent refining their methods and their teamwork, their knowledge of each other, until the three could act as one when the situation called for it. There would still be the necessity for a trial by fire but it was one that Anko was sure they'd pass with flying colors.

A pity that they couldn't have brought Kakashi along as well, as he was the one who had been officially named their sensei, but he'd believed, and rightly so, that they'd learn better from someone who was used to dealing with people. He'd been kind enough to volunteer the use of what had been, before the founding of Konoha, a secret training ground for the Hatake clan; being the last survivor of that old and venerated tribe of warriors, Kakashi had little need to keep it hidden.

As skilled in the arts of combat as Anko might be, her real strength lay in her effectiveness as a field agent, her skill at handling other human beings. Kakashi was a powerful warrior, true, but he was not that good a teacher, or so he thought. He'd laid a foundation, and it was up to others to build on it. So while she did feel a little guilt at spending a virtual year (or nearly so) and a literal month with his students, Anko wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. These three, Naruto especially, were special to her.

She reflected briefly on Naruto's rather dismal past, and thought of the strange kinship with the boy that she also held with Iruka, a familiarity that Kakashi couldn't really share. His isolation from Konoha had been his own choice, his own doing. Not so she or Naruto, and to a degree her Iruka-kun. While she may have loaned her body out to the Copy Ninja on occasion to fill a mutual need, it was with the Academy teacher that she really felt at home, that she had someone who would understand all the trials she had endured upon her return after being discarded by Orochimaru. So too it was with Naruto, who from birth had had the deck stacked against him, and yet continued to thrive. Even the strongest heart, though, got lonely, and many were the times when she'd visited the young jinchuuriki late at night, singing to him while he slept, and while Iruka kept watch for the blond's official minders. Somehow Kakashi always managed to be absent on missions those times, and though she had tried singing for him once, the masked man had never said one way or the other whether he enjoyed it or not, and eventually she'd given up. Kakashi's own hardships in youth had forged a terrible weapon, but as a person he was somewhat lacking in communicative ability.

Some part of that must have been why Iruka had grown attracted to her, his being one of the few people who'd seen her softer side, the part of her that wanted to be held and comforted, not leered at or used for a night's pleasure and then left like a common whore. He'd given her that, and though they'd been getting intimate for only a short time their acquaintance went much further back. Before he'd been a loudmouthed brat, shouting for the world to recognize him, and now he'd grown up and become a man that Anko could respect, and even love.

He'd found the recognition he'd always wanted in the halls of the Academy, rather than out in the field. Iruka's was the voice people thought of when they imagined a stern but fair teacher, the guiding hand which set their children on the path to greatness. It didn't mean that his skill as a shinobi was lacking, far from it, as one needed to be exceptionally skilled to teach the children of the clans and keep them safe; she knew how he puffed with pride at hearing his students' accomplishments, and how thankful he was every time he got a letter from parents saying that if not for his role as an educator their children would be ill prepared for the trials they faced.

Enter Naruto, the boy who held the keys to a demon's wrath. Like Iruka he had been ignored, outright shunned, and like Iruka taken things to an extreme just for a moment of acknowledgement, the slimmest margin of approval. For the longest time he'd had only the Hokage, and in the shadows his watcher Kestrel; then came the ramen vendor and his daughter, followed by Iruka and the one-armed kunoichi Miyuki, the latter quite literally out of left field, it seemed (a little digging had revealed that they occupied neighboring apartment buildings, however). And through Iruka he'd gained friends like Shikamaru and Chouji, rivals like Kiba or Sasuke, and admirers such as Hinata and Konohamaru. It may not have been the 'whole village' that he desired, but for someone who had been alone his whole life, it was a start. She saw it in his eyes, whenever he thought nobody was looking.

Oh yes, Anko saw, every glance, every flick of his vision, every tense of his jaw as if he couldn't countenance the thought of losing one of his teammates. In those brief moments she witnessed a level of possessiveness that was borderline psychotic, telling her that he would do anything to keep them safe. As much as she'd like to prevent it, as well, the time would come when he would lose one or both of them to injury or death, and when that happened she hoped he was trained well enough to not completely freak out and start rampaging. He had little enough and to have what few friends he'd gained stolen away from him would either destroy Naruto or temper him into something fearsome to foe and ally alike.

Should the day come that Naruto witnessed an ally, a friend, fall in battle, she feared that there would be nothing that could stand in his way save for his own conscience and will, even if he were completely stripped of the Kyuubi's power. Things could get even worse if the person was one with whom he'd been intimate, and though normally she would encourage teammates to shack up in order to promote familiarity (having indulged in a little matchmaking here and there) this was one time when Anko would attempt the opposite. Mental shenanigans and punishments aside, his teammates could not afford to get intimate with him and it pained her to be embarking on a tactic of isolation when he'd been alone all his life; she only hoped that the girls didn't beat her to the punch.

Snapping out of her thoughts, Anko started to make her way towards the genin's camp, taking her time as there was no real rush to interrupt the trio's personal time. Creeping up on their camp with all the practiced ease of a veteran sneak, she peered into the shack that had been set up with a little elbow grease and a lot of clones. Upon seeing the sight therein, she smiled, as there was apparently no need to worry. Sure, Hinata's shirt had somehow gotten down near her feet and Sakura's face was pressed up against Naruto's stomach, but they were so deeply asleep that there was nothing untoward about the scene at all. Leaving the trio wrapped up in each other as they were, Anko retreated back to the tree-line, hopping up onto a sturdy branch to get some rest herself.

_Damn__it,__ Iruka, __your __worrying __is __rubbing__ off __on __me. _Oh well; small habits were the easiest to pick up.

* * *

><p><em>Writer's Rant: some of you are complaining that too much is going unexplained, that I am too rough and lack any real flow.<em>

_My goal is not to rehash the same three months before the Chuunin Exams WITH EVERY STORY (for all I know that's how long it is, anyway) when the manga's writer didn't spend any great deal of time exploring the team dynamics before the Wave arc and barely even delved into their relationship during the whole Exams—I'm not doing anything Kishimoto hasn't done so please stop complaining that I'm not detailing every day of their lives with painstaking scrutiny. That's not how I work. Too often you see authors spending twenty chapters describing what amounts to two weeks' worth of events, and there's so much more to tell. You aren't present for everything your friends do, are you? Please stop getting on my case for not exhibiting every small interaction. I know what's important to the story and that's what I'll be portraying._

_There's a lot still to tell and my muse has been kicking me in the nuts, so if the pacing's a little rough, well, I'm sorry I can't do better but I am not perfect and I do not strive to be. I'm just trying to tell a story and have people (hopefully) enjoy it._

_One other thing that I'm not sure I've complained about before: why do people feel the need to remind us of what characters look like? It's not as if we can't go look them up on a wiki or something, or that, in the transition from drawing to text they somehow lose definition and we need to be told their appearance once again. I find it odd, as well, that so many fics involve new wardrobes of the all-black/grey variety (I'm somewhat guilty of it, too, shut up) to the point that it completely deconstructs a character's reason for wearing a particular outfit to begin with._

_I'll try to have the next chapter up BEFORE the end of the world._

_P.S.: I know, this chapter probably sucks. The next one's gonna be better, I swear.  
><em>


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